


The Bridge Between Worlds

by DJClawson



Series: Acts of Deliberate Intent [2]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avatar Universe Fusion, Bending (Avatar), Black Sky, Buddhism, Catholicism, Gen, Order of the White Lotus, The Chaste, The Hand, mentions of animal abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-25
Updated: 2015-12-10
Packaged: 2018-04-23 06:34:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 80,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4866737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DJClawson/pseuds/DJClawson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matt Murdock returns to Hell's Kitchen, but not everything goes smoothly from there. The city has changed without him, and so has its citizens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Old and New

**Author's Note:**

> This is a direct sequel to Blackening Sky, so if you want to read this, you might want to [try that story first.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4239552/chapters/9591450)  
> I'm going to try to keep to a general posting schedule of twice a week. This fic is going to be around 60K and is mostly finished, but still needs a beta to find typos. If you're interested, email me at djclawson and gmail.
> 
> This fic fills a couple of general ideas or prompts I've seen posted:  
> \- general Avatar: ATLA universe fusion, though this story should not require you being familiar with that series or setting to understand what's going on  
> \- Winte Soldier-ization of Daredevil (continuing from last story)  
> \- Stick backstory  
> \- Some other things I can't give away at this time
> 
> You can read updates on the fic in general and see fanart I've commissioned at my tumblr, [DevilofMidtownWest](http://devilofmidtownwest.tumblr.com/).

“Tada!” Foggy Nelson spread his arms wide as he stepped into the apartment. “Welcome to your new-old home. Or your old-new home? Which is better?”

Foggy’s enthusiasm was infectious. Matt Murdock smiled as he stepped through the doorway and onto the familiar worn hall mat, scarred from the scraping and stamping of boots laden with New York’s finest dirt and sticky waste. He was surprised at his own instincts, which told him to put his cane against the wall to his right when he realized he actually needed it. The sound of Foggy’s voice, coupled with the ambient noises of Hell’s Kitchen, provided enough waves of sound to give him a vague sketch of the room, but he was not ready to embarrass himself by tripping on something in his own apartment.

And it did seem like it. The furniture smelled of him, or at least an old him, though that was covered by the mild smell of dust and mildew that was inevitable for furniture that spent two years in storage. The air tasted like disinfectant, mostly the vinegar and water combo that Matt preferred, with dustings of harsher industrial chemicals in spots that must have required it.

Matt took a few steps forward and found the kitchen counter. The wood was smoothed by use. He was familiar with it, it usually being the first thing he touched in the apartment itself when he entered, so he noticed new grooves and the sheen from recent cleaning products. Other people had been here in his absence, too many to count, but Foggy had done his absolute best to erase the forensic evidence. “Did someone hit their head here?”

“Um, maybe?” Foggy shrugged. “Technically all of the guests were supposed to report any damage they caused, but they knew I didn’t have a lot of ways of following up on it.” Air BnB _was_ illegal in New York State. “Nothing serious. I did have to have the sofa bed’s springs replaced a couple times. The app doesn’t warn you about expenses.” Matt’s apartment also required the hiring of a cleaning lady and the purchase of guest furniture, but it was still a financial resource to Nelson and Murdock that kept the rent paid and the lights on. Matt knew his disability check wouldn’t begin to cover his bills otherwise.

“Everything should be more or less where it should be,” Foggy said as Matt wandered to the windows. “I didn’t see a reason to take the curtains down. They’re grey, in case you’re wondering.” Blackout curtains had been needed to block the electric billboard from lighting up the apartment at all hours of day and nothing, something that never bothered Matt but made it difficult on guests. “If you don’t like them we can – “

“They’re fine.” Matt smiled reassuringly. He knew how much effort Foggy put into this, trying to turn back the clock two years so Matt could feel at home. His fingers graced the edge of the fabric, which was heavy linen. “The couch?”

“Same couch but I did get it professionally cleaned. Like had a crew in here and everything,” he said. “I know you did love bleeding on that couch. Which, gross, please don’t get back into the habit.”

“I don’t plan to.” The end of his cane found the non-matching chairs he knew were there. “There’s an extra one.”

“It’s a lay-z-boy. Electric. Folds out all the way into a bed. Found it on sale at Raymour and Flanigan. More beds, more paying customers, so ...” Foggy led him to the bedroom. “The door’s new.” The sliding door fixture had been destroyed in Matt’s fight with Stick – three years ago, he couldn’t believe it – and he’d never gotten around to fully repairing it. “It gets stuck sometimes, so there’s a bottle of WD-40 in the closet, with the trunk of boxing stuff.”

“The police went through that?”

“Hell no. Karen and I hauled that thing to my place before we let them in here. I could have just taken out of all of your gear, but I figured there was probably a ton of bloodstains inside – “

“You weren’t wrong.”

“ – and that would make the police suspicious. So no, they never saw it.” But it was back. Foggy opened the door to the storage closet but shut it before Matt could go feeling for himself. “And there’s a lamp in your bedroom. Halogen. In the corner. You want me to take it out?”

“I can handle it.”

Tyson, the kid who was helping Matt move in, reappeared at the door, bearing another cardboard box. “It says kitchen supplies.”

“Just leave it out on the counter please,” Matt said. “I’ll sort it myself.”

“Sure, Mr. Murdock.”

“Call me Matt,” he said, still a little uncomfortable with the idea of being helped. The first time, he’d moved in on his own. “And thanks for all the help.”

“No biggie.” Tyson set the box down and went back to the elevator for another load. Most of it was assorted items and immediate supplies like groceries.

“He seems like a good kid,” Matt said when Tyson was out of range. “He’s what, seventeen?”

“Sixteen. And we’re going to have to start paying him soon. I didn’t specify how many free hours he owed me.”

“What were the charges?” Matt had been told the story very quickly: Brett made a call. Tyson was some distant cousin, and despite Foggy’s ranting about wanting to own nice things, he still did pro bono work. And he wanted to be on Brett’s good side.

“Breaking and entering and one count of assault. I argued defensive wounds because it was a two-way fight, knocked B&E down to unlawful entry because it was too dark for him to see the lock on the window, and a promise of a lot of community service kept him out of juvie,” Foggy said. “He’s a kid. He made a mistake.”

“And he had a good lawyer.”

“The handsomest lawyer in town, they say.”

“Because _I_ was out of town, obviously.”

“And you always claim that you don’t know the difference.”

So much about the room was familiar and unchanged and so was Foggy, and that took the edge off the incredible awkwardness of the situation, and the stress of returning to this life, but Matt still sensed the differences. Foggy still sounded the same, probably still looked the same, still put too much product in his hair so it would get stringy by the end of the day, but he was different. He smelled of Marci now, or at least Marci’s apartment, which was different than his own. Matt knew he was basically living in it. He didn’t know how that had happened, exactly, just that it had, and Foggy told him about it at various points when Matt was still in a near-catatonic state, and there were also somethings he didn’t tell him, either because it wasn’t Matt’s business or Matt honestly didn’t want to know.

Foggy was so eager to prove that nothing had changed, that the status quo had simply been maintained, that everything was on hold while Matt the human being had been taken apart and slowly put back together again. They both knew that wasn’t true, but the veneer of fiction bandaged a very open and painful sore they weren’t sure would ever entirely heal, but this trip home and all the effort Foggy put into the apartment meant they were both willing to try.

Matt was surprised how much luggage he had to bring home from the monastery. There were his clothes, his braille books, his computer, then all of the things Foggy had gifted him – stress toys, stuffed animals, CDs and action figures – and parting gifts from the overprotective monks: a St. Lucy medallion (of course, he definitely didn’t have enough of those) and a hand-carved wooden statue of her that he would put in his office, a case of the monastery’s IPA because he was too polite to say no, and a braille psalter. He also had a ton of handmade soap from his pilgrimage, where the nuns supported themselves boiling up the stuff, and while it wasn’t precisely the worst-smelling soap he’d encountered, he would be re-gifting it rather than using it.

Come to think of it, it wasn’t that much. His life did not take up much space. But that was the way it always had been, and it had never bothered him before. No reason for it to bother him now.

Foggy was nervous about leaving him, so they ordered in from the Vietnamese place which had replaced the Thai place, which had replaced a sushi place that was closed for health code violations, which had replaced the original Thai place, and most of the recipes on the menu were Thai. After a year of organic monastery food Matt found it all unbearably greasy and filled up on the salad and Foggy tried to pretend not to notice.

“I bought a smart TV for the apartment. It gets Netflix and Hulu and all of these radio stations through WiFi, but the controls don’t work half the time and there’s no accessibility options, so it’s back at my place now. If you want it, I can bring it over.”

Matt shook his head. “Computer’s fine.” At the night, after a Netflix stand-up special and two episodes of _Law and Order_ , he had to convince Foggy to leave. “I’m fine. I really am.” It was a lie, but it was as close to the truth as they were going to get.

“I just want everything to be okay.”

“It’s not going to be perfect, Foggy,” Matt said. This wasn’t his first time in trauma therapy in his lifetime, unfortunately. “Not all of it’s going to be easy. But it’s going to be okay, because of you. I couldn’t have done any of this without you.” He held out his first for a bump.

“You think I’m going to accept that as friend currency?” Foggy pulled him into a hug. “You’ll call me if – “

“If I need you, yes.”

“And you have the doctor appointment tomorrow at 10 AM.”

“I know.”

“And Brett wants you to call Bess when you get a chance. No pressure.”

“I know.”

“There’s food in the fridge. And on the shelves. And in the cupboards. And Tyson still owes me, he’s on your contacts list – “

“ _Foggy_.”

Foggy was tearing up. “I already lost you once, buddy. It’s not happening again.” He sniffed and finally went for the door. “And no parkouring!”

“That’s not a thing.”

At least Foggy was probably smiling again. “You know what I mean.”

*******************************

Matt made it back from his new psychiatrist’s office with just enough time to make midday Mass. It had been awkward, establishing new rules in a new space, where the seal of confession didn’t apply and he had to obfuscate. The doctor was a specialist in human trafficking and ex-soldiers, but New York State Law still required him to report crimes on which there was no statute of limitations, so they danced around how Matt would phrase what he couldn’t say, and let the ugly reality hide behind a curtain.

_“Do you have trouble sleeping?”_

_“I have trouble dreaming.”_

The church smelled the same way it did last time he was there – surely some confessional-type conversation with Father Lantom? He hadn’t been much of a Mass-goer then, never felt clean enough for the Body of Christ, still didn’t, but the ritual was part of his daily rhythm now.

The chapel was nearly deserted; the Eucharist didn’t bring in the crowds that it used to. He preferred it that way. Sundays would be too crowded. He was back to being a New Yorker, so he had to learn how to handle crowds, but walking past them in the streets was different than the people standing next to him, looking at him and whispering ‘poor thing’ to themselves. They did that _before_ he became ‘that blind guy who went missing, it was on the news’ so he didn’t want to imagine what he would have to endure now.

_“Have you ever attempted suicide, or do you feel suicidal tendencies?”_

_“I’m not sure how to explain my answer.”_

Midday Mass was all business, designed for people who had to squeeze it into their lunch breaks. Everyone in the city was always busy with something, even if it was the old ladies who came to pray for their grandchildren to get married, or at least come to church once in a while. Blue collar workers, mostly, and homemakers. Both men present were in some kind of uniform. He was the only one in a tie.

_“Let me be more specific. Have you recently thought about taking steps to end your life?”_

_“No, but sometimes I wonder why I am still alive.”_

The liturgy was as familiar as breathing to him now. Living in a monastery did that. The mixture of English and Latin, the voices of people half-interested or whispering under their breaths because they were afraid to show how devout they were, as if they would be judged for it. And like breathing, he said the words without thinking, not because he didn’t care, but because at this moment he needed to feel the flow of something normal and natural. It was comforting.

_“But have you attempted anything in the past?”_

_“Of course.” As if it was obvious._

There was a lot of standing, sitting, and kneeling, in various orders. Everyone said the younger generation didn’t have patience for it and that was the problem. Matt imagined that the older generation always said this of the younger generation, throughout the centuries. And there was nothing like the image of an arthritic grandma getting on her knees without using the cushion to inspire him to power through an injury without complaining.

The wafers were pre-baked in a factory somewhere, and sold in plastic-wrapped boxes. They probably all had the exact same shape and imprint, made by machines. He was used to the home baked ones, because monks who had given up worldly things had time for things like that. Father Lantom did not have his own bakery. On weekdays, he didn’t even have a proper altar boy.

“Deliver us, Lord, we pray, from every evil, graciously grant peace in our days, that, by the help of your mercy, we may be always free from sin, and safe from all distress, as we await the blessed hope and the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ,” the priest said.

“For the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours now and forever,” they replied.”

_“What are your therapy goals?”_

_“I don’t know.” The real answer was,_ Not go insane again _. “I haven’t thought a lot about it.”_

No one came up and talked to him after Mass. On a Sunday he would be swarmed, so Matt was grateful that he didn’t have to make a hasty exit before the service was actually over. He could wait in the back pews for people to leave, either to rush back to work or to shuffle out, complaining about their joints or their children or the weather or how few people there were at the service. Father Lantom could remove his vestments and take a moment for himself after a long service before making his way back to Matt.

“You had to sneak in while I wasn’t looking, didn’t you? So I couldn’t give you a proper greeting?”

“I’ve been told it’s what I do.”

Father Lantom wanted to hug him but he had to let Matt take the lead on that. Matt wasn’t a big hugger – he didn’t like the fabric of other people’s clothing, or what being up close revealed about them – but he was willing to give him this. They hadn’t seen each other since the priest had driven six hours in one day just to hear Matt’s confession.

“When did you get back?”

“Yesterday.”

“How is it?”

“It’s a little strange,” he admitted. “I’m not used to all the noise.”

“I’ve never gotten used to it. And I grew up here, too,” Lantom said. “And when I’m out of town, I miss it.”

“Crickets are louder than people think they are.” Matt reached into his bag and handed the priest two bars of soap. “Souvenirs from Our Lady of the Rosary. I’ve still got about a dozen of these things to unload.”

Lantom gratefully took the offering. “You don’t use soap?”

“I prefer unscented.”

“I heard they have a copy of the Shroud of Turin there that’s four hundred years old.”

“Yeah, Foggy got to see it,” Matt said. “It was behind glass so I guess I’ll never know what Jesus smelled like.”

“Haven’t lost your perchance for blasphemy, I see.”

Matt laughed. “What do you expect from a guy who used to put on a set of horns?”

Father Lantom sat down in the pew. “I suppose I had that coming. How have you been, Matthew?”

This time, Matt couldn’t give him a snarky answer. Not the way it was asked. He deserved better. “Okay.” He revised his answer. “Just okay.”

“Have you talked to anyone?”

“I saw the new psychiatrist this morning,” he said. “And I have ... I did trauma recovery therapy before. I don’t really want to do it again. But that was more about physical adjustments to a disability. I had to do it so I didn’t walk into things. This time – it’s different, but I’m going to give it a try.” He knew refusing it would be a pretty bad move, and he didn’t want to make bad moves. Not in his first full day back.

“I haven’t said anything to the people in the community who came in and prayed for you,” Lantom explained, “but you are eventually going to get calls. And cards. People will wish you well. They’ll feel guilty if they don’t.”

“I know. I’m not looking forward to it,” he answered. “There are a few people I need in touch with. They deserve it. But I haven’t done it yet. A-And I want to go back to work. I shouldn’t be scared of my own office.”

“We don’t get to pick what scares us,” Lantom said. “Life would be a lot easier if we could.”

“What would you pick?”

“To not be afraid of? That’s easy. Snakes.”

“I think snakes are supposed to be scary. I might have read about it somewhere.”

“They’re supposed to be _despised_. But I would like to not freak out at the sight of a snake.”

“That come up a lot for you these days, Father?”

“It only has to come up a certain number of times before you’ve had enough of it.” Because of course, Father Lantom had been in Africa for over a decade. He had probably had his share of genuine moments of terror over snakes, and not the kinds that showed up in gardens and city parks. “I suppose you’ve already been told that this is all going to take time. It’s not always going to be to schedule.”

“Yeah,” Matt said. But he’d already lost too much.


	2. A Good Day

Every day Matt didn’t wake up screaming or unable to breathe was a good day.

Not every day was a good day.

He had daily pills for sleep and anxiety, carefully sorted into plastic boxes in a tray. Foggy had labeled it in braille for him. He had emergency pills for panic attacks. He was supposed to keep track of how often he had them for his shrink, but the number was already embarrassing.

Matt knew of all of the things he was supposed to do – take it slowly, not beat himself up over his progress, admit his frustrations so he could accept them, and so on – but doing them was so much harder. He’d never been patient with anything medical. After the accident (which wasn’t one, and that was another story he still didn’t know and maybe didn’t want to know) he had been using his cane too early and too aggressively, hitting everything that came in his way, including his father on a number of occasions. He (had) learned braille at such a speed his tutor was impressed. Looking back, he wondered how much worse it would have been if he hadn’t worked so hard to learn Stick’s frustrating lessons. He was told he was doing an awful job but he knew now that was probably a lie, and he had been at worst a decent student.

He wondered about Stick a lot, but that was a separate thing entirely.

In the end, he did beat himself up a little bit when he fell out of bed trying to find his bottle of pills and that G-ddamned stupid stuffed avocado toy that was made of scratchy felt and felt bad against his skin that he didn’t love to pieces (almost, a couple times) because _Foggy_ had given it to him. There was no reason he shouldn’t have been able to breathe – the city’s air wasn’t that bad – but everything in his chest was tight and it hurt and it took a while to stop hurting.

But he eventually pulled himself together and got up. He showered off the sweat, dressed, and made himself a breakfast of scrambled eggs. Foggy had been excessive about filling his fridge. He had no idea how he would go through all this food before it went bad since all of it was so fresh.

Foggy called mid-morning, and politely didn’t ask how he was doing. “Marci wants to take us out for lunch.”

“Um, okay.” He probably shouldn’t have asked, “Why?”

“Because she works late, but she gets lunch breaks, and she can go to restaurants we can’t afford. And don’t offer to contribute. I know both of our finances and she will also not find it chivalrous.”

“I didn’t think she would.”

Foggy sensed he needed a further explanation. “And she’d like to talk to you. To see how you’re doing. She is genuinely interested. And she will be nice.”

“I don’t expect her not to be nice.”

“I mean, she might be a little mean, but like very low levels, for Marci. And not about serious things.”

Marci was an important person in Foggy’s life. Matt had to face this reality from afar. It was different when it was close up, but it wasn’t like he hated her. They just rubbed each other the wrong way – or they had in the past.

This was supposed to be a fresh start. He reminded himself that. “Okay. I’m looking forward to it.”

“Really?”

“Yes. But, um, what does she know, exactly?”

“Well, we were together when you disappeared, so she followed that investigation. But I didn’t tell her about, you know, the suit. It wasn’t relevant.” He didn’t add that Foggy’s depression had been the cause of his breakup with Marci, something Matt knew from conversations with Karen – who, to be fair, had also run off to pursue an acting career in California. “When we made the details of your discovery public, I called her and told her you were back. She knows the Avengers were the ones who found you, but I just said the words ‘human trafficking’ and that was kinda the end of follow-up questions. Worked on a lot of people, actually.”

“Yeah.” It sounded like it would. No one wanted to probe that pit of darkness.

“We got back together six months ago, and she knows about the monastery, and now she knows the people who took you were caught, and that you’re back, and you’re intending to come back to work eventually. She’s been pretty respectful of your privacy. And has expressed concern about your wellbeing. Because it turns out she’s a shark, but she’s a shark with feelings?”

“I didn’t doubt it. Okay, where and what time? And do I need a suit jacket?”

It turned out he did, but it worked out, because he left straight from Mass. It was autumn, but unseasonably warm, driving people out onto patios and terraces to enjoy the last of the fresh air before winter drove them indoors. It was a business lunch place, the kind they would have been invited to at Landman and Zack had interns been given lunch breaks, where people charged overpriced salads to expense accounts and most of the meal was liquid. Matt could hear the rustle of expensive suits mixed with the clinking of expensive jewelry against tableware, all coated by exotic perfumes and aftershave. There were a lot of heartbeats, but they were all distracted, living in their own worlds.

“Matt,” Marci said. Her voice was even, maybe just a little nervous, which was a rarity.

He held out his hand. “Marci. Nice to see you again.”

“Too bad you can’t appreciate the view,” she said, not in a mean way, just the way that she would say things as they shook hands.

He could hear Foggy’s heartbeat racing in irritation, but Matt smiled to disarm him. “It’s nice to know some things never change.”

It felt strange, sitting in a suit (sans tie) in an expensive restaurant where the waiter politely read the menu to him, which involved a lot of arugula and even some game meat. He wasn’t supposed to drink on his medication, but he figured a beer would put a dent in his anxiety, and they had some nice offerings. They were mostly quiet through the ordering process. Marci politely asked how he was doing, and he very politely responded, “Good.” Which, at the moment, was not a complete lie. “How’s, um, working for Rosalind Sharpe?”

“When you’re a level above intern, it’s all basically the same,” she said. “But we have these things like interesting cases and billable hours and expense accounts. You might have heard of them? We can’t all make our livings writing wills and representing wannabe vigilantes in grocery store devil costumes.”

Foggy’s nearly choked on his gin and tonic, giving Matt to very calmly say, “Oh?”

“Of course. None of them could afford a lawyer with respectable rates. No offense – “

“Some offense taken,” Foggy said, struggling to recover. “Hey, how about that local sports team?”

But he was not escaping this topic of conversation so easily. Matt made his voice as casual as possible. “I thought the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen disappeared years ago.”

“The first guy did. Died or whatever,” Marci said, clearly oblivious, the first thing he wanted to know. “The copycats were another thing. The place was lousy with them. I think they’re all injured or in jail. Except for the ones Foggy-bear bailed out.”

“It was just two,” Foggy added quickly. “And one was only a consult. He followed his crappy family lawyer’s advice and took the plea. And both were because Brett called – look, it’s a long story.”

“I bet.”

“And I thought you’d be proud of him,” Marci said to Matt. “Hopeless causes are your thing.”

Foggy needed to get his heartrate down or he might have a coronary, so Matt just smiled. “I guess we’ll see as the practice develops. We don’t have a famous name to build on.”

“Oh, Nelson and Murdock is pretty famous among people who like to pay in casseroles and knitted sweaters,” Marci said, this barb directed at Foggy. “All of which looked or smelled awful.”

“I was warm and I saved a lot on takeout,” Foggy said. “And the lights stayed on. Somehow.”

Matt was not out of the woods yet. He was tense for the rest of the meal, even if he did it increasingly well with a few more drinks to keep a buzz going. Marci was excellent at small talk, if small talk meant bragging about her job, or alternately complaining about the hours, or the pay (even though it was high), or generally just being Marci. She didn’t ask Matt any questions he didn’t want to answer, but she didn’t ignore him either, which had been her previous modus operandi when the three of them were together. In other words, it was nice, and Matt was genuine in thanking her for inviting him out.

“Keep your eyes on him, or however it is you do what you do,” Marci said, “I need my boyfriend back in one piece.”

“Hey!” Foggy put up the smallest of objections as she left. “I don’t want to say who might wear the pants in this relationship, and I _am_ wearing pants.”

“Do you both still have long hair?”

“Shut up, Murdock,” Foggy said, offering his arm for Matt to take. “Let’s get a cab.”

“Tyson was one of them, wasn’t he?”

“Or just walk,” Foggy said, blatantly ignoring the question until Matt pinched his arm, right above the joint. “Ow! Yes. Okay, yes, he was busted for breaking and entering and assault while in a Daredevil costume, and I took his case because he’s Brett’s second cousin or something and he gave me a call. Do you feel better?”

“I honestly don’t know how I feel,” Matt said, which was true. “How did Brett know to – “

“The first case was another free throw from Brett. The guy was wearing a dyed Spider-man outfit with attached cat ears and it looked really shitty, but he beat up two muggers before the police showed up. The muggers pressed charges. That’s when Brett found out I was somewhat well-read on vigilantism and self-defense laws. For some reason. So he called me in for his cousin. The kid broke into a first-floor apartment to stop a guy from beating his wife. I argued the B&E down to unlawful entry because I said he couldn’t see the locks through his homemade mask, which he practically couldn’t. He was one of the lucky ones.”

“Because he had you.”

“Because he didn’t wind up in the hospital or prison or dead, that’s why.”

Matt stopped. “Wait, dead?”

Foggy sighed. “Yeah, um, two of them died. One took a spill off a fire escape and hit his head. The other – “ He really didn’t want to say what happened to the other, but Matt stood firm, planting his cane in the asphalt in front of him, hunched over slightly to show how intensely he was listening. “He did pretty well they think, until he ran into some mobsters. They stabbed him and left him for dead. He didn’t make it to the ambulance. Fortunately that ... kind of put an end to it. To people impersonating the Devil. Until Tyson, who was lucky – _lucky_ – to get caught the way that he did. I told him I would get the charges reduced and his record as a minor sealed only if he would agree to never, _ever_ put on anything remotely resembling a costume again, Halloween included.”

“That’s fair.” Matt swallowed. “You didn’t mention this. Previously.” And Foggy had talked to him, a lot. Particularly when Matt was unable to respond, and Foggy had to fill the time himself, but even after, to keep Matt engaged.

“Yeah, well, I felt you had enough on your mind. Was I wrong?”

Matt bowed his head. “No.”

“I’m sorry I kept it from you. I really am. Especially when you make the face you’re making now. But I don’t regret it. You weren’t here, you weren’t involved, and frankly I was terrified of what you would try to do if you _could_ be involved.”

They did not discuss Daredevil. They both knew how they felt about it. Those feelings were complicated.

“Okay,” Matt said. “You did the right thing. Looking out for me. And for Tyson.”

Foggy radiated relief. “Thanks, buddy.”

*******************************

Matt knew Brett wanted to speak to him. That made the conversation easier to start. He stopped by the police station, and poor Brett had to maintain his policeman composure until he could find an excuse before a break. As soon as they stepped out back he grabbed Matt’s hand and shook it. “Good to see you, man. How long you been back?”

“This is my third day,” he said, smiling. “How’s Bess?”

“Seems like she isn’t aging a day. I managed to get her to trade cigars for expensive chocolate for a little while. Now I think she’s doing both.”

“She’ll outlive us all. Send her my regards, will you?”

“She’ll be real happy to hear you’re back. She knew you were coming, unofficially, but none of us knew when. Foggy just started getting real antsy about it, told us all to be cool.”

Matt dug his cane into the cracks in the pavement. “He’s been a real friend. I don’t think I would be standing here, talking to you, without his help. But I am curious what he told you, exactly.”

“We saw each other at the police station in Rye. They had just found you and we needed your prints and DNA swap to close the missing persons file.”

Matt shook his head. “Sorry, I don’t remember it.”

“You were in shock. Didn’t say or do anything. So I don’t expect it.” Brett patted him on the shoulder. “Look, people around here know when someone gets taken away for a year, spends a lot of time away recovering, it’s not anything good. Foggy told me the Avengers found you in Africa or something. So I don’t need to know the rest, unless telling me would help you.”

“It wouldn’t.”

“You do have someone to talk to, right?”

“A professional, yeah. And my priest. And I’m supposed to go to group. Really dreading that.” He tried to smile again. “I’m covered. Thanks, Brett.”

“You need anything - anyone gives you shit about anything, I don’t care what it is - you come to me, okay? Don’t hesitate.”

“Okay.” He nodded. “Though I do have a question about something. Foggy’s been representing vigilantes?”

Brett jerked his head in a curve; he was probably doing an exaggerated eye roll. “Some of that’s on me. Or the second one is. I didn’t know he’d be so good at it. Not like I need more guys in pajamas getting beat up in my jurisdiction. People are calling me Commissioner Gordon.”

“Commissioner Gordon’s a classic character! You should be touched.”

“Commissioner Gordon turned into a cranky old white guy who couldn’t catch a few hours of sleep without a man dressed as a bat jumping through his window. I’d rather not be that guy.”

“Commissioner Gordon was white?”

It made Brett laugh, which was good. “And I don’t want to be commissioner, either. Lotta stupid press conferences.”

“Right.” But Matt wasn’t ready to let this go. “I heard, um, that two of them died? Or three of them? I don’t know what happened to the original guy.”

“He probably got in over his head,” Brett said. “And there was the guy who fell off the fire escape.”

“Foggy said there was another one. Who was murdered.”

“It’s an open case. I can’t comment on it.”

“I could just read about it in a newspaper.”

“Then do that.”

“C’mon,” Matt said. “It’ll take forever with archives and my screen reader. Just tell me what’s fit to print.”

Brett sighed. “He was stabbed. The newspaper says seven times. He died of a combination of blood loss and exposure.”

“Exposure?”

Brett was shaking his head. He didn’t want to tell this part. “The guys who did it, they knifed him and they strung him up on a fence all - you know, arms out, tied at the wrists.”

“Crucified.” The word tasted like ash in his mouth.

“Without the nails, but yeah. He was still alive when someone found him. We were in a cold snap, so he had some frostbite, but he was still breathing when they cut him down. He died in the ambulance. That’s when people stopped playing Daredevil. Tyson was the first after Wellick and he didn’t make the papers, so hopefully he’ll be the last.”

“Yeah,” Matt said. “Yeah, I hope so.”

But he knew he was lying, even to himself.


	3. The Expert

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still no beta! Seriously, email me if you can help.
> 
> WARNINGS FOR REFERENCES TO ANIMAL ABUSE in this chapter.

Claire Temple had wondered not when Matt Murdock would waltz back into her life, but how. Would he be suited up and stabbed, bleeding out in her fire escape like nothing had happened? Would he be in an Iron Man-like suit with horns, working for the Avengers, assigned to Hell’s Kitchen?

It wasn’t that she thought he was invincible. Certainly the opposite. And for a long time, she thought he was dead and she wasn’t surprised by the notion. It was upsetting, but the surprising thing was that his friend Foggy claimed up and down that Matt hadn’t been in the suit and there was nothing linking the disappearance to the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. She didn’t think Foggy was lying to her, but he didn’t have all of the pieces of the story either. What she didn’t expect either was how much grief would tear her life apart. She held out for a while - she saw it happening to Foggy. She saw that receptionist Karen, who was so sweet but not innocent, fleeing a mile away. As the case went cold and the missing persons signed were defaced in the subways and aged by grime, the community that gathered around the case of the disappearance of Hell’s Kitchen’s blind defender (and Jack Murdock’s poor orphan son) dissolved, needing quiet for grieving. She needed distance, and she moved to her grandmother’s apartment in Brooklyn and took a shift at a hospital there. But she didn’t let go of her place, just leased it to a relative. She knew she was coming back. Matt wasn’t the only one willing to suffer the consequences of living in Hell’s Kitchen because saving it and the people in it was in his blood.

And then Matt was back. Or not back, but alive, and recovering somewhere outside of the city. She thought that was a very wise choice, and told Foggy so when he had the decency to tell her in person about it. He offered very few details about it - it involved the Avengers and kidnapping, two things she didn’t like to imagine went together - and she didn’t pry. She was a nurse. She knew when not to. It would have been like poking an open sore. Foggy was still bearing the brunt of the combination of grief and guilt surrounding the mystery of Matt Murdock. When he visited he was tired, his eyes betraying how little sleep he had, how worried he was. He said Matt would need a long time to recover, that he might not be the same. What he didn’t need to say was that Matt might not recover, but she could read between the lines.

There were infrequent updates. She hadn’t been close with Foggy in the months after the disappearance, and he had a lot on his plate. For a while, she guessed that there was nothing good to say or he would have said it. Then eight months in, he forwarded an email from Matt, who was somewhere secure.

> Hi Claire -
> 
> I’m sorry I haven’t contacted you.
> 
> You are the first person I’ve written to.
> 
> I’m doing better. I don’t know when I’ll be back, but I look forward to it.
> 
> If you’re not there, it’s okay.
> 
> Matthew Michael Murdock

The formality of typed words made it difficult but she could read the pain between those lines. She wondered how much energy it cost him to compose it. Foggy hadn’t talked about wounds, and in her limited experience with human trafficking victims (mostly sexual, unfortunately), the damage was overwhelmingly mental.

There were scattered notes after that, mostly apologies. Just like Matt, feeling like he was intruding by caring about what she felt, what she might be thinking. So at least that hadn’t changed.

Then his captors were caught. Or died. It wasn’t clear, and Foggy didn’t make it clear. Foggy, being a good lawyer, obfuscated his own involvement on something that might have been extra-legal and made the rest of the details unreachable, but the point was, Matt was better, and Matt was safe. And he wasn’t lying about it, because two months later, Matt called her to say he was back in the city.

On the call he was hesitant, even scared. “I understand if you don’t have time to see me now - “

“Matt, don’t be ridiculous. Do you remember what I do when I’m not working? Try to sleep and wait for you to drop by. As long as you don’t literally drop this time.”

“No. Nothing like that.”

*******************************

It wasn’t anything like that. It wasn’t like Matt as she’d seen him before. She’d seen him a few times in his suit and tie, looking like a smart young professional. She’d seen him in various states of undress. But she hadn’t seen him in a nice suit and slacks standing uncomfortably in her doorway, glasses hanging from his collar, his cane held out in front of him like a shield. His fingers were more restless than usual.

He smiled, but he could not make years of trauma go away, even though he was trying his very best. It would probably even work on other people, people who didn’t know. People who didn’t see abuse victims make excuse after excuse, their eyes sad with the length of the years behind them. And his eyes were always sort of a giveaway anyway, which was why he used his glasses to cover them.

Not from her, apparently. Not even now. “Hi.” His head jerked to the side. She wondered what he was listening to. How he was reading her, and the room. “Can I come in?”

“Of course.” She stepped aside. “The furniture should be more or less the same, but I can’t guarantee it.”

“It’s fine, thank you.” He didn’t let go of his cane, but he dropped the pretense of using it for its intended purpose either. So at least he hadn’t lost his heightened senses. There was that small mercy. “Can I sit down?”

“No, the couch is exclusively for people who are going to bleed on it,” she said. “Would you like something? Coffee? Tea?”

“If it’s not too much trouble.”

It would take time to find her footing with New Matt. Not that Old Matt had been so easy to handle. It was just different. They both struggled with small talk until the tea was ready, and after he took his first sip he started in with, “Claire, I don’t want to be any trouble, I’m so sorry - “

“No.” She had to be firm. Immediately. “No, Matt.”

“I’m sorry?” But that was just out of confusion.

“I mean no, I’m not willing to have this talk, or invite you to my place, or even let you stay here right now and drink my precious nana tea if you keep apologizing. I don’t care if you really are sorry. I pre-accept all of your apologies and I don’t want to hear any more of it. I’m not going to be here to let you feel guilty about something that wasn’t your fault. Are we clear?”

Matt sat silently for an unbearable few seconds before answering. “Yes.”

“I’m sorry I had to do that - and yes, I get to use that phrase, you don’t - but I had to set some ground rules. If you’re going to come here, and we’re going to be friends, you’re not going to be miserable. I don’t have any specifics but I think you’ve probably had enough of that. Am I wrong?”

Matt smiled wryly. “No.” He added, “I missed you.”

“Much better. And I missed you too.”

“I’m sorr - I mean, I know I didn’t write a lot. But there wasn’t a lot to write about.”

“Where were you? Foggy just said ‘upstate.’ Unless you don’t want to about it.”

“I was in a monastery.”

She broke out into inappropriate laughter. “They took you?”

“They had a guest house and I’m sure some things were left out of my application,” said the former Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. At least the twinkle was back in his eye. “There was, um, a monk there who used to work in Africa. With child soldiers. My priest did missionary work with him. I wasn’t ... that capable of an advocate for myself, but Foggy refused to send me to anything that looked or smelled like a hospital, so they came up with St. John’s. It’s a Benedictine Abbey in the middle of nowhere where monks pray and brew bad beer for tourists.”

“What did you do with your time?”

“I went to Mass. They were pretty cool about letting me sleep through it,” he said. “Foggy drove up a lot, kept bringing me new things to read, new audiobooks. And I learned a lot of church Latin, if you go to one of those churches that rejects Vatican II and need me to translate something.”

“When I do go, the services are in Spanish.”

“I’m pretty good with that, too.” So he hadn’t forgotten how to be charming. Good for him. “I almost learned to whittle, but blind guy with a knife? Made them a little nervous.”

“But you didn’t take what is it, holy orders, I see?”

“Oh,” he said showing his devilish side, and not the one that made criminals flee, “that was never happening.”

“You want to tell me why?”

“I don’t think I have to.” It wasn’t Matt at his most seductive (she wasn’t sure she had seen _that_ ), but he was confident and collected, much more so than when he walked in the door. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out an amber square wrapped in plastic. “I brought you soap.”

“How generous.”

“I went on a pilgrimage,” he explained. “They sold soap to support the convent. I guess it’s better than indulgences.”

“You went to Rome?”

“I went to New Jersey,” Matt said. “Took the PATH train.”

“And what did that get you?”

“Some peace of mind,” he replied. “And it got me out, which was a help. To getting here. Home.” But the way he said the last word was loaded, like he was unhappy with it. “Your place hasn’t changed much.”

Claire put the soap aside. “Is that a compliment?”

He nodded. “There was somewhere here with you?”

“I rented out the place. Went to live with my grandmother in Brooklyn. Things here just got a little ... Well, everyone needs a break from the city now and then.”

“You don’t have to say why. And I want to apologize.”

“Not allowed.”

“I know. But I want to.” He knew why she had fled Hell’s Kitchen. Foggy must have told him something. “Your couch doesn’t smell like my blood anymore.”

“I almost gave up on it entirely, but I was afraid you would stumble in and think you had the wrong apartment,” Claire said, only half-joking. “So I got it steam-cleaned instead.”

“I’m touched.” And he did sound like it.

They still had time before she started her night shift – she did not tell him she didn’t like being home alone at night, preferred this shift now. They ordered dinner, with Matt insisting on treating her with all of his ill-gotten apartment-turned-hotel gains. “I made money while I was on disability. You’re not supposed to do that.”

“Everyone on disability has something on the side. They don’t give you enough to live on.”

“I’ve never been on it before,” he said while stuffing his face with lo mein. “I used to think, if I couldn’t do something, it was because I wasn’t trying hard enough. Because I was weak.”

“Don’t tell me the nuns taught you that. They don’t put up with any bullshit, but that doesn’t sound like them.”

“They treated me like I was weak, but they didn’t say it. It was, um, the guy who taught me to fight who told me that. And I believed him, because I was a little kid. I think I still do.”

“Guys sounds like a class act,” Claire said. “And you are not weak. Hard-headed, yes. A poor evaluator of whether or not you have a concussion, yes. But weak, no. No one’s going to make that argument except you. You’re about as good as beating yourself up as you are with Russian gangsters.”

He smiled. Strangely, it must have evoked positive memories in him. “I know. It’s just nice to hear someone else say it once in a while.”

“Glad to be of service.”

They ate slowly, leisurely, not like they were used to doing at all. They made small talk and Claire talked about the least gross parts of work, which was mostly ER staff gossip. As the time edged to her shift start, she saw the nerves creep back into Matt. His eyes darted around more while his body was rigid, his arms floppy like he didn’t feel comfortable in his own skin.

“Matt,” she said gently, “tell me what it is.”

“I ... don’t expect anything from you,” he said. “I know how hard it was for you. Or, I can imagine. I can’t just jump back into your life – “

“That’s how you got here in the first place,” she pointed out. “What do you need?”

He swallowed, turning his head away. “It’s my apartment. I hate it.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. Foggy did everything possible to make sure of it. It’s just ... I wake up, and I think about the last time I woke up there, and I was such a different person. I don’t know who I am anymore. I used to be a lot of things to a lot of different people and now most of that’s gone.”

“You want to sleep on my couch?”

He nodded. “Just for a few hours. I need the space. I need to be somewhere else. I can’t explain it – “

She cupped her hand around his jaw. “You don’t have to.”

“I don’t want to impose.”

“I didn’t have to invite you over. I knew what that meant. You can get a little clingy,” she said with a smile. Matt always seemed to know when she was smiling, even though he said he couldn’t read most facial expressions. “Losing you was horrible. And I didn’t exactly write you long letters while you were upstate, either. But it’s actually nice to have you here and not because you need sutures. You don’t have to be anybody for me, Matt.” She kissed him on the forehead. “I’ll get the guest sheets.”

He protested a little more, his mind pushing and pulling him in and out of being comfortable with her, or around her, or at all. By the time she changed into scrubs, he was asleep. When she returned in the morning, he was gone.

*******************************

“I’m sor – I’m apologetic about leaving before you got home,” he said a few days later. It was her day off and she invited him, because he was still too timid to invite himself.

“It’s basically the same thing. Rules still apply,” she said. He’d left her a note that basically just said THANK YOU in block letters that looked like they must have been agonizing for him to draw. Obviously he wasn’t the type to maintain his handwriting abilities. “I didn’t expect you to wait. You do have something on your schedule, right?”

He shrugged. “Mostly therapy and church. I’ve been reading up on Foggy’s caseload, but I haven’t been to the office. I keep forgetting Karen doesn’t work there anymore.”

“What’s she up to? We talked a lot when – when you first went missing.”

“She says she’s doing well in LA, working on building her acting career.”

“So she waits tables?”

He nodded. “She’s lying, though. About how well it’s going. It makes it uncomfortable to talk to her.”

“You can hear heartbeats over the phone?”

“Skype, and not really. There’s too much audio interference. It’s the way she talks – I can’t describe it. If she didn’t once or twice I wouldn’t notice, but it’s all the time. Something in her voice when she says she’s happy or when she talks about parts she’s up for. Something’s not right. But I’m too far away to do anything, and it would be rude to try to call her on it.” He added, “I haven’t told Foggy yet. He doesn’t like it when I do things like this. He considers it an invasion of people’s privacy. But I can’t shut it off. Trust me, I wish I could sometimes.”

“I think I’ve gotten pretty good about catching people lying about their medical histories,” Claire said. “But I’m not actually allowed to push them too hard on it. They’re not obligated to report everything.” She nudged him. “I could bring you in there. We’d both be fired by the end of the shift, but it would be interesting.”

“I’m good at cross-examination,” he said. “People were terrified of me in mock trials in school.”

They went out for pizza, and even though it was only down the street, Claire realized it was her first time being out with Matt. Not exactly a date, not exactly not a date – she didn’t know how to define it. He didn’t look like he knew how to, either. He just knew he wanted to be around her, and she wanted to be around him. If there were any further complexities, they could be ignored for the time being.

Until they returned to her apartment, where Mrs. Grady, who lived on the second floor, stepped out with her dog, a yappy little thing that always sounded like it wasn’t walked enough. It darted out, straining on its leash, and Claire was about to politely coo when she saw Matt stagger on the stairwell and almost fall over. While he didn’t appear to be injured, he was shaking when she helped him up and into her apartment.

By then, he was having trouble breathing. She recognized the signs of a panic attack. “Matt, it’s okay.” She pushed him down onto the couch. He flinched, one hand holding his cane so tightly as to try to crush it. “You’re in my apartment. You’re safe.” Through his wheezing, he briefly lifted his head to face her general direction, but he was too focused on getting air despite no apparent barriers in his throat to say anything. She took a seat next to him and cautiously touched his shoulder. “Do you have any medication with you?”

He reached inside his jacket for a bottle of pills, which made a lot of noise inside their plastic container because his hand was shaking so hard.

“I’ll get this for you,” she told him. It would take him forever to open the childproof cap. Fortunately the pills dissolved under the tongue. “You know how to do this, right? Try to hold it in your mouth. It’s okay if you swallow it.” He got in the first try, but she knew it took take time to kick in. He wouldn’t suffocate before it happened, but that didn’t make it easy. “Matt, you’re going to be okay.”

His free arm swung out in her direction, and she realized that he might not have the usual level of mastery of his other senses or be able maintain a clear picture to keep himself from getting disoriented. “Matt,” she repeated, taking his hand, which was clutching at nothing, “you probably know this, but it’s me. Claire. You’re in my apartment. You’re having trouble breathing but it’s going to get better.” Normally she would talk a patient through following a count, but he needed more sensory items. That was what he was trying to tell her with his hand, so she wrapped hers around it and placed his palm against her chest, right over her heart. “Can you feel that? It’s my heartbeat. It’s me. I’m not going away.”

He pushed his thumb into her skin, not hard enough to be painful but to indicate he knew to look for something.

“Just breathe, Matt. You can follow my heartbeat,” she said. “In and out. In and out.”

He gasped, trying to find words before she shushed him. Slowly but surely, his breathing started to fall in line with a normal rhythm, and the tension in his body was replaced with exhaustion. “You’re okay,” she repeated. “You did great.”

He leaned over (practically fell over, actually) and buried his face in her shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

She didn’t correct him. Now wasn’t the time. “How often does this happen?”

“My doctor knows about it.” In other words, he didn’t want to say, but he had pills with him, so that was a bad sign. “I’m really sorry.”

“Matt – “

“It was the dog,” he said. “I – I’m supposed to do behavioral therapy, so this stop happening, but we’re not there yet.”

Plenty of people in the city owned dogs, and Matt could hear as far as four blocks away. He probably was _never_ out of range of a dog barking. This couldn’t have been new to him, so ...

He put his head in his hands and answered the question for her. “They made me kill dogs.” His voice was so small it sounded like it didn’t belong to the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. Or even Matt Murdock, when he was being quiet and polite. It belonged in the mouth of a much smaller, weaker man.

“Okay.” She put a hand on his back. “You don’t have to say anything else if you don’t want to.” Even though it did leave her with about a million follow-up questions, all of them horrible, none of which she truly wanted the answers to. It could wait for now. She decided it could probably wait forever.

“How did you get so good at this?” His voice was squeaky but his speech was a little slurred; the tranquilizer was kicking in.

“You dummy,” Claire said as she pulled him and kissed him on the top of the head. “I’m a nurse.”


	4. A Symbol

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I found a beta! It's Zelofheda! Thank you to everyone who offered.

The first smell that hit Matt’s senses as he walked through the front door was weed, covered by patchouli but not as well as people thought, and he wasn’t even on the right floor. The yoga/meditation studio was a third-floor walk-up and Bruce Banner fretted a bit over it because the stairs were old and had deep indentations from years of wear and tear. Matt didn’t tell him he didn’t need to be told how many steps there were. He knew Bruce just wanted to be helpful, and he would be happy if he was helpful, so Matt smiled appreciatively, because you did not make the Hulk angry.

Bruce was ... weird. There was so much anger coursing through him with no obvious source, and without the usual signs of an infuriated person – elevated heartrate, heavy breathing, tensed muscles – that the rage felt ephemeral, like it radiated out around him on a frequency only Matt could notice. When he toned down his focus, Bruce seemed more like a normal, albeit slightly nervous guy. And Matt had to call him Tenzin here – Bruce took a “dharma name,” entirely to hide his identity.

The studio seemed like the real deal. It certainly smelled like it. There was an altar at one end of the room, with an offering tray in front of it of slightly overripe apples and seven copper bowls of tap water laid out in front of the little idol with too many intricacies and details for Matt to get a good sense of it without touching it, which he wasn’t about to do. The walls were covered by scrolls.

“These are thangkas,” Bruce explained. “Traditional Tibetan scroll art. Natural pigments in a brocade frame. I would describe one to you, but the imagery is complicated. I don’t really understand it. I just come for the classes.”

Matt looked in the direction of one and touched the edge of the brocade. “Not natural pigments. Acrylic. And the fabric is polyester.”

Bruce shrugged. “Don’t tell the teacher that. She’ll be insulted. Or maybe embarrassed. Either way – “

“ – don’t say anything, right.” His cane found a cushion on the ground. “We get pillows?”

“You’re supposed to have them. What have you been doing?”

“Let’s just say my instruction was a little informal.”

The teacher – whose name was Debbie – entered and fiddled with the incense holder at the altar while the other people entered. She did not ask anyone to introduce themselves even though she did notice Matt, for which he was grateful. “Namaste,” she told the class. “Today we’re going to focus on tonglen. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with it, tonglen is a Tibetan meditation technique that means “sending and receiving.” It’s designed to decrease selfishness and increase karma by meditating on compassion. With your in-breath, focus on drawing in the suffering of others, and with your out-breath, imagine yourself sending your compassion out into the world as a replacement for suffering. Your breathing can become the vehicle for alleviating suffering.” She sat up properly, in a half-lotus position, to demonstrate for the crowd now to sit. “I’m going to hit the singing bowl three times to begin, and then another three after twenty minutes, when we will take a short break, then resume the meditation. If you need to get up and stretch, use that time, but try to remain silent otherwise.”

There was a brass bowl on its own cushion beside her, and she struck it three times with a wooden rod. The sound it made was quiet beautiful, not what Matt was expecting at all, and it resonated in the bowl for a very long time.

Meditation for him always began with rolling back his senses, trying to block out outside (and inside) noises. Sometimes it was the only purpose and it was what he was good at. Audiobooks and lecturers told him to picture something (unhelpful) or focus on his breathing (helpful except during allergy season). His knowledge of meditation was not about forcing the mind to go blank as focusing on a particular thing and letting other thoughts fall away.

But focusing on bringing in people’s suffering was too easy, like drinking from a firehose. He didn’t have to go far in his mind, between all of the people he’d hurt and all of the people he’d failed to help, or was failing _right now_ , by sitting in a yoga studio with wannabe hippies –

And he hadn’t even scratched the surface and he was having trouble breathing, because he was fucked up like that. It wasn’t a full-on attack, but it would have become one if he hadn’t stopped when the teacher came over and very politely told him tonglen was not for everyone, not on the first try at least, and he should focus on something simpler. Matt managed to get it together by the end of the session, for which he was somewhat proud, and somewhat less embarrassed. Plus one very experienced meditator had broken down crying, and Bruce just said, “It happens sometimes.”

Bruce had to wear a heart monitor. “If it gets to this rate,” he explained as he showed Matt in the coffee shop after class, “I have to leave.”

“Leave class?”

“Leave _everywhere._ ”

“I hope that’s never happened.”

“Well, the building’s still standing, isn’t it?”

So yeah, Bruce did make him feel a lot better. Over decaffeinated tea, Matt told him about ninjas who could lower their heartrates so he couldn’t detect them.

“I’m not, um, a huge fan of ninjas right now,” Bruce said, squirming in his chair. “No offense.”

“None taken,” he said. “And I don’t know how to do it, or I would tell you.”

“Tony’s arc reactor kept his heartrate at a perfect level all the time. Essentially a high-tech pacemaker. He offered to put one in me, but we didn’t think surgery was a great idea. I’d just – he’d just, you know, tear it out.” One thing Matt had learned quickly was that Bruce did not like talking about the Hulk, or even associated himself with him. It. Whatever. “He’d turn anyone into a cyborg if we let him.”

“That sounds dangerous.”

“That’s why we don’t let him.”

*******************************

Matt was walking home from his therapist’s when his cane found something odd on the street. On his left was a former Baptist church, now a hostel, so it had a lawn and a tall iron fence. He could smell the paint from a recent touch-up job, but that wasn’t what attracted him. When his cane swung left it struck something made of glass, low to the ground, and knocked it over so it rolled across the sidewalk and settled in the dent between the cement squares. He knelt on the ground and felt around until he picked it up. It was a cheap glass cup with the waxy remains of a used candle. When he put it back, his hands found more of them, as well as plastic flowers and posters taped to the brick just below where the fence started. They were in layers, the older paper softened by rain and streaked with dirt.

“Excuse me,” he said to the woman about to pass him. She was carrying heavy groceries and there was no bus stop on this street, so she probably lived in the neighborhood. “I’m sorry to bother you, but can you tell me what this is?” He put his hand against the freshest of the posters.

“Oh! They should clean that up. You didn’t trip, did you?”

“No.” He rose to his feet to prove it. “I think I just knocked over some of it. Is this a shrine? Did the police shoot someone?” Because that was, sadly, the reason these things popped up in the city.

“No, but they haven’t caught the guys, either,” she said with a healthy dose of cynicism. “This is where they strung up that Daredevil guy.”

Matt barely managed to throw together an, “I’m sorry?”

“Sorry, that wasn’t very respectful. It was a while ago. You didn’t hear about it on the news? This guy, Wellick, he was one of the guys dressed up like the devil, trying to fight crime, and some gang stabbed him and tied him to the fence here. I think he was even still alive when they found him. Didn’t last long though.”

“I was um, out of town. I just heard about it.” He faced the shrine and crossed himself. “The bodega at the end of the block – do you know if it sells candles?”

*******************************

Matt waited for Father Lantom after Mass. He sat in the back through the service, his posture indicating he was willing to be patient. It wasn’t like he didn’t like sitting in a church. The old stonework was so expertly put together there was rarely a crack, and with age came smoothness and the lingering scents from the incense that blocked out the sounds and smells of the busy city block just outside the heavy wooden doors.

“Can I get you anything? The latte machine is broken but we have tea.”

“No thank you, Father.” Matt managed a smile. He knew he was taking up a lot of the priest’s time. “On the way here I found the shrine on 52nd.”

Lantom crossed his arms, his body tightening in apprehension. “I suppose someone told you what happened?”

“Only what was in the papers.”

“Then you know as much as I do,” Lantom said “He wasn’t Catholic, and I can’t say I knew him. He was buried out in Idaho in a family plot. There was a non-denominational vigil that night, where the shrine is now.”

“There was another death before it. Someone fell from a fire escape.” Matt added, “Foggy didn’t tell me any of this.”

The priest shifted uncomfortably. “I can see why he wouldn’t want to. Why he might think you would find the topic upsetting. It was certainly upsetting for everyone here. They didn’t put a picture of the crime scene in the papers, but it was on the internet. I had a meeting with the Cardinal about what the heck was going on down here.”

“He thought you had something to do with it?”

“He was wrong _in this case_ ,” Lantom said. “But people get very concerned about religious imagery.”

He didn’t mean for that to be a burn on Matt, but that was because he was being polite. “I was the one who chose the look.”

“They would have found another way to make an example of him, if he had been dressed differently. That was the point of it, I suppose. And it did stop young men – and one woman – from getting in over their heads, taking the law into their own hands. And the incident attracted so much attention that the increased police presence brought down street crime for a long time. It’s still down, at least according to the news. If he wanted to make the streets safer, he didn’t die in vain.”

“There’s still crime,” Matt said. “People can’t hear it.”

“And I suppose you can. Is that what got you thinking about it?”

“I’ve been thinking about it since my first night back in the city,” Matt confessed. “Listening to it. There’s a man, one building over, third floor, beats his girlfriend, knocked her kid around too. I called the police about a domestic disturbance but she won’t press charges.” His hands were in his pockets; his right hand played with the rosary beads hidden in there. “Across the street there’s a guy selling tainted club drugs out of his apartment. He has a special way to buzz people into the back.”

“You expected something different?”

“I used to block it out. I guess I did it without thinking after a while. I remember my first night back from Columbia’s dorms, thinking maybe the sirens were just louder even though I was on a higher floor and that didn’t make any sense. Or my walls were just thinner. Now I’m supposed to take pills, and I do take them, but they make things fuzzy – hard to focus. So I listen. I used to get so angry I could hardly sleep at night, and now ...” He shook his head.

“And now?” the priest pressed him.

“I feel nothing. Numb. I don’t – it’s not that I don’t feel for them. That I don’t think about trying to do something. But I do nothing. And that’s what I want to do. Nothing. I’m sorry if I’m not describing this well.”

“I’m not a psychiatrist,” Lantom said, “and you have one of those.”

“He says it’s depression. He wants to put me on an SSRI. Taking more pills – it’s the only thing I can seem to get angry about.”

“Depression can be paralyzing. You can feel isolated. Alone. Like you don’t care about the world and it doesn’t care about you. And frankly, I’m a little relieved that you’re not jumping from rooftops, trying to stop drug dealers and everyone who takes a swing at someone else. I’m allowed to be relieved about that, I think.”

“Hmph,” Matt said, slightly amused.

“We all like to think that, if presented with a situation where we could do good, we would choose action over inaction. But action is hard. Action is complicated. And most of the time, we’re able to shut evil out just as a method of self-preservation. I suspect you know better than anyone the costs of involving yourself in the fight against every injustice you can find.” He sighed. “Jim Wellick found out the hard way.”

“I just remember when I used to care more.”

“I’m sure you don’t care any less, Matthew. We’re sitting here talking about it, aren’t we?”

Matt had no response to that.

“You have an obligation to take care of yourself. There was a time when you weren’t so great at it. You can only do your best. Sometimes your best may not _seem_ like a lot, but I’ve never known you to do otherwise.”

Matt tightened his jaw, his teeth clenched together, but had nothing to say.


	5. The Order of the White Lotus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Jewish holidays are finally over! Yay! I can't write during them, so that's an issue. I actually have to write a novella that's under contract before November 1st, but I'll try to finish writing this story too. 
> 
> Comments?

Matt always had problems with the mail. It got easier as he got older and more and more was online or automated, meaning most of the things in his mailbox were junk. He never ordered anything from catalogs, so they went right in recycling. Campaign mailings, which were seasonal, had a particular shape and paper quality. He only had two credit cards, and he paid them both off online, so he shredded anything that came from a certain return address. The reader app on his phone was good with everything except the heavy, shiny cardstock, which came back unreadable because it was “too bright” with the camera’s flash. The rest, he left in a pile for Foggy.

Still, sometimes something would get his attention. Anything where the address was handwritten, since he didn’t know a lot of people who would be dumb enough to write him through the postal service. A postcard, because again, why would they bother? Anything the Association for the Blind sent him, because they should know better.

So when a letter came in an innocuous envelope but with a wax seal on the back, he didn’t know what to make of it. It was the real thing, too, not a sticker, professionally done but not by a machine because the wax was a little uneven and smelled of ash mixed in from the melting process. It was about the size of a nickel, so he could barely make out that it was some kind of flower, with eight petals around a hole in the center.

The return label read, according to his phone, “ _Order. Of. The. White. Lotus_.” He tried a few more times, but there was no address. It was against postal rules, but if the letter was dropped in a box with the right postage it would still get delivered.

He opened it carefully with a kitchen knife so as not to destroy the seal. Inside was another mystery: an index card with handwriting that his phone could not read and a wide, short piece of flappy paper with a stub on the end. There was enough shine to the paper that it took his phone half a dozen times to read enough for him to figure out it was a plane ticket in his name, round trip from Newark to Tokyo.

Sometimes ninjas weren’t subtle. At least he _hoped_ that was what this was about.

*******************************

“You beat me to asking about it,” Foggy said over dinner.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I got one too,” he replied. “And you think you’re so special. I had to Google it to try to make sure it wasn’t a scam. And hey – business class. We’ll probably get hot towels.”

“Foggy, it’s a trap.”

“It’s an _expensive_ trap. We know ninjas are not above buying property in New Jersey, and someone wants us to go to Japan? And they’re paying for it? I’m sorry, man. I’m going. You can stay home if you want, and then you can pay for your own plane ticket to come rescue me later. I will take this chance.”

“Fine.” He wasn’t going to be able to dissuade him. Maybe that was why they invited Foggy? “What about the card?”

“It’s geographic coordinates, and that’s it. For – and I’m going to butcher this pronunciation – Aokigahara?” Foggy was reading off his phone. “Which is a forest near Mt. Fuji. Very scenic. Lots of tourists. Oh, and it’s associated with demons! So it’s right up your alley.”

He frowned. “Foggy.”

“Hey, I’m just telling it like it is. They didn’t give us a lot of other clues,” he said unapologetically. “Oh! And it’s, um, the most popular place in Japan for suicides? Like a hundred people year go to this forest to kill themselves. That’s a downer.” He coughed. “It is really pretty, though. I didn’t know trees could even be that green. Because it’s on volcanic rock or something. Matt, we’ve _gotta_ go to this. Out of respect for the lengths these people have gone to for an ambush. Imagine the time and money they put into this. Or just the money. Last time I just got pulled into a van with a bag over my head. This is way better.”

“Are you going to take this a little bit seriously?”

“Yeah! The flight is a month from now. That means I have to buy some software and start brushing up on my Japanese like, tomorrow.” Foggy pointed at him. “And you need to call the Avengers and look into what the Order of the White Lotus is and why they’re trying to kill you and whatever. I’m sure someone will know.”

Except for a fourteenth-century Buddhist cult called the White Lotus Society, Matt hadn’t found anything helpful on the internet. “We really shouldn’t bother them.”

“Clint Barton invited me to Brooklyn to watch _Dog Cops_ ,” Foggy replied. “So yeah, I think they occasionally have some downtime.”

“Have you figured out what you’re going to tell Marci?”

“Yeah, I’ll tell her we got invited to Japan by a secret society, probably made up of ninjas who might want to kill us, and the plane tickets are non-refundable so we’re going. Which is all true and I will say it to her face and she will not believe me but I will get to go to Japan.”

Matt couldn’t fault the logic on that one.

*******************************

Natasha Romanoff returned Matt’s call in a suspiciously short amount of time, and she did so by being on his couch when he returned from dinner. He tried not to be alarmed. “So it’s bad?”

“Your WiFi password is embarrassingly easy to guess,” was her response. She’d never broken into his apartment before, but he supposed being friends with an Avenger-slash-super spy had its price. “And your beer is crummy.”

“Everyone seems to think that but me. Which prevents people from stealing it.” He would be more uncomfortable with someone invading his personal space, but these days he didn’t feel much like his apartment was his personal space. He wasn’t sure what it was to him. “I wasn’t expecting such a quick response.”

“Better than over unsecured technology.” She handed him what felt like a wooden tile with something painted on the side. “I know you can’t see it, but it’s a white lotus, same style as the wax on the seal.”

“Where did you get it?”

“When I was Tony’s PA, I found it a cigar box owned by Howard Stark,” she said, as if that explained everything. “Hadn’t been opened in twenty years at least.”

“And you just took it?”

“I’ve seen that symbol in two other places,” Nat said. “When I was in ... training ... one of my teachers kept the tile on her desk. She wasn’t one for personal affections, and when she was compromised, she broke back into her office. That was the only thing she took.”

The statement had a lot of emotion hidden behind it, and not particularly well. Matt decided not to comment for the time being. “And the other?”

“Sota had a tile on the counter next to his Buddhist shrine,” she explained. “Clint and I went to his apartment in Koreatown because he was the go-between with the Hand for handing over Takeda and Meifing. I saw it, but I didn’t say anything. And the only thing connecting those two people is Stick.”

He handed the tile back to her. “I don’t think Stick would have much appreciation for it. Your teacher – she was Russian, I take it? Was she an, um – “

“Black Widow? No. She was a teacher. Later she was my handler. She was the one who told me about Stick, in case I ever ran into him. Which I did, but not until I was hunting down leads during your investigation. He said they weren’t friends, but they didn’t kill each other, so I should draw my own conclusions.”

Matt smiled despite himself. “Stick’s not big on explanations. I had to bully him about Black Sky.”

“You never told us what that was. So you did find out?”

His smile was gone. Hopefully she would take the hint. “Sometimes I wish I hadn’t.” He pivoted. “No leads on Stick?”

“Bruce said Stick told him his name was John, but that’s hardly gotten us anywhere. Not that this guy was that findable _before_. Maybe he’ll be waiting for you.”

“It’s not his style. Plus, I think me coming after him is the last thing he wants right now,” Matt said grimly. “And he wouldn’t have invited Foggy.”

“If someone would have kidnapped, there are about a million better ways to have done it,” Nat said. “I think you should go.”

“Really?”

“Just don’t expect a very fast extraction.” She was playing with the tile between her fingers. He wondered if she knew he could tell. “Seriously, though. I think it’s an invitation to something a lot bigger than either of us are imagining. And I think you’ll regret it if you don’t go.”

Matt couldn’t deny that that much was true.

*******************************

“So Natasha told you nothing except that super sketchy people are involved, and all of those super sketchy people are off the grid right when we need them?” Foggy said without looking up from his computer. “This is going to be so _exciting_.”

“I thought you’d be less enthusiastic about it at this point,” Matt admitted as he lit the flame under the tea kettle. “Last time these people were involved, you were almost killed.” Matt didn’t add that he had been the one to almost kill him, but he did feel a pang of guilt at the thought.

“Dude, I got to use Captain America’s shield. That photo they took of me holding it? That’s my lockscreen.”

“I still don’t think you should go.”

“And what, you’re going to go without me? Even if I hadn’t been personally invited – which I was – you’ve never even been on a plane before and you don’t speak a word of Japanese.”

“Uh, _ajisai_?”

“Nice try. That’s the name of the Japanese restaurant on 44th. Even if it is a word, it doesn’t count.” And Foggy wasn’t adding the obvious – that Matt couldn’t read signs even if they were in English, couldn’t navigate well in unfamiliar spaces, and had generally disastrous experiences with public transportation. There was a reason he never left the city.

“I’ve been on a plane before,” he said defensively.

“Really.”

“Does Elektra’s dad’s private jet count?”

“When did you – forget it, if you’re bringing her up you’re desperate. And no, it super doesn’t. You’re going to Japan because of ninja stuff, and I’m going because I was invited, and that’s that.”

“Marci signed off on this?”

Foggy huffed. “She’s not my keeper.” Because Matt was, obviously. “Though we’ve got to bring an extra piece of luggage for all of the crazy expensive shit I’m going to buy her.”

Matt smiled. Foggy’s enthusiasm added a brightness to the room that Matt did not feel otherwise. He rarely thought of colors _as_ colors anymore, but he still associated them with moods. It had been a drab, grey day. “What if I get separated from my trusty guide?”

“I’ve got it figured out. I’m going to make flashcards, and all of them are going to say, ‘Help me find my friend Foggy-san.’ We have a braille printer at the office now. A good one this time.”

Matt still hadn’t been to the office, but Foggy hadn’t pushed him back to work. He could learn a lot from Foggy’s patience. When it was needed, it was there in endless quantities. And Foggy was right – Matt wouldn’t be able to get around another country very easily, especially one where he didn’t speak the language. Was that why they invited him? No, he had to be considered more than Matt’s helper.

If the Order of the White Lotus felt any differently, he would correct them.

*******************************

Marci had a lot of feelings about Matt Murdock. Not “feelings” feelings, the complicated kind. The suspicious kind. She didn’t think he was evil, or (currently) out to sabotage her relationship with her boyfriend, something he admittedly would have been capable of without trying, but Matt Murdock was the only person who she had known for so long and still sent up red flags that told her to keep up her guard. She’d warned a couple of her girlfriends about his stupid, ‘help me I’m blind’ act, which had just gotten more charming with practice, but it wasn’t because she thought he would hurt them. There was always that rumor that he’d slept with an entire sorority in college (not at once, she was told), but she also never heard a complaint about him being anything other than an utmost gentleman.

No, she warned her friends because Matthew Murdock was a swamp, a bog made up of issues where one front step and you could sink forever – and that was _before_ he went missing. Blinded as a child, saw (well, _heard_ ) his dad die in an alley, spent his teenage years in a Catholic orphanage, had some kind of sensory processing disorder - the whole works. Being great in bed only made up for some of that, especially since he seemed incapable of long term romantic relationships – fuck it, even he and Foggy had fallen apart, and they must have given it their best.

But the phrase, _Oh, poor Matt_ never entered her mind. Not because he hadn’t had more than his share of bad shit happen to him, but because she knew that he didn’t want her thinking that, and he always seemed to know when people were thinking that, and unless he was using that sympathy to get into someone’s pants, he wanted nothing to do with it. She could at least offer him that.

And then there was the year he was missing, something that left him in a pit that he was still pulling himself out of. She had been annoyed at him – guiltily – for what it did to Foggy when he was gone. She did let herself think, _If Matt Murdock is lying dead in a gutter somewhere, he should have at least found a gutter nearby so we could find the body_ , because Foggy did not deserve the shit losing Matt put him through. Marci had never seen anyone care about anyone else so much, and so hard, and so constantly, and be so unable to prevent himself from dragging everyone down with him, so she’d bailed. Not her classiest move, but she wasn’t going down with the _SS Foggy_. She did keep in touch, and was really, really happy when he went back to grad school, and when he seemed to be treading water instead of sinking, because Foggy was a good guy.

That was the thing about Foggy. Matt was the guy you banged. Foggy was the guy you married. And she hadn’t completely forgotten about that when Matt was found and shuttled off to a Catholic rest home. She gave it a couple months before letting herself reconnect, when Foggy was capable of talking about things other than Matt. In fact, he was eager to do so. He said almost nothing about what happened to Matt when he was missing and was grateful when she didn’t pry because holy shit, it must have been bad.

So she was kind of curious to see Matt. He and Foggy were tied at the hip, so it was unavoidable anyway, but she knew it would take some effort on her part. She’d never been on spectacular terms with him for reasons that they both understood. So she invited them both to lunch, then waited another two weeks, and showed up at Matt’s apartment with take-out from some expensive organic superfood place that would probably meet his obsessive compulsive food standards. She gave him fair warning of a text a few hours ahead, and he replied by telling her when he would be back from Mass.

Bearding the lion in his den, as it were. She was suspicious, not afraid. She saw no reason to change this policy. He answered the door with his glasses on (she’d never seen him otherwise) and wearing a jacket and slacks, probably for church, but the rest of him was sort of disheveled. He hadn’t bothered to shave in a few days or comb his hair. He just said, “Hi,” in a measured tone, not unwelcoming, but also not sure what she was doing here.

“I brought lunch,” she said. When she stepped in, Matt switched on the light. The apartment had an exceeding amount of sunlight, but it didn’t reach the hallway. The apartment looked ... well, like a blind guy’s apartment. Nothing on the walls, lots of greys, and furniture that didn’t match. There were strips of masking tape on the floor at the kitchen table to denote to guests where the chairs should be placed. It was also huge, so there was that. No wonder Foggy had made so much money renting this place out.

“Can I get you something to drink?” he asked politely. “Though I think all I have at the moment is decaf tea and beer.”

“Yeah, I’m familiar with a bachelor apartment’s offerings,” she said, putting the grocery bag down on the counter. “Water’s fine. I prefer drinking on the firm’s tab anyway.”

“Nelson and Murdock doesn’t have the budget for that sort of thing,” he said. “You might as well enjoy the perks of the job.”

They made small talk while the food was sorted onto proper plates and tasted. Matt lied about doing well, Marci didn’t go into any specifics of her current caseload, and it turned out they had both read Foggy’s latest published article in the Columbia Law Journal, so they had something in common to discuss before she got down to business.

“So. Japan.” She felt no need to dance around it anymore. “Foggy gave me a nonsense story about ninjas.”

Matt was debating how to respond. “It probably wasn’t complete nonsense. It’s Japan.”

“Japan is not filled with ninjas. That’s racist.”

“I learned martial arts from a guy I always thought was Japanese, but turned out to be a white guy,” he admitted. “Or so I’ve been told.”

“You learned martial arts _after_ you went blind?”

“I didn’t learn them that well,” he said, chuckling. “If you want the truth, here it is: We don’t know what the Order of the White Lotus is, or why they’ve invited us to Japan and paid most of the way, but if it makes you feel better, the Avengers checked it out, and they think we should go.”

“And what made you think you needed the Avengers to check it out?”

“Not all of the Avengers,” Matt said defensively. “Just Natasha.”

“Black Widow.”

“Yes.”

“The former Russian spy.”

“Yes.”

“You asked a former spy to sign off on your trip abroad.”

“Yes?”

“You are not telling me a ton of shit, Matt. And I do not appreciate it. You can go and get yourself in trouble, but do not take my boyfriend down with you.”

Matt bit his lip. He knew he was cornered. “The people who helped find me, and helped find the people who kidnapped me and tortured me into doing whatever they wanted? I think that’s the White Lotus people. There’s evidence of some connection. They put their necks out for me _and_ Foggy. So I’m conflicted and confused, but if they want me to come, I’m going. And Foggy – I couldn’t talk him out of it if I tried. And I _did_ try.”

That was a lot of information on the table – not all of the pieces, but the necessary ones. She decided she could respect that. “If anything happens to Foggy – “

“You’ll kill me, yes,” he replied. “You won’t have to try very hard.”

*******************************

Matt was discovering a new hatred of international travel when Foggy decided to broach a whole different subject. “So. You and Claire.” He did it then because he was smart, knowing Matt was trapped with him at the counter at the post office, as Foggy filled out all of the forms for Matt’s passport that did not, of course, come in braille or any online format. He’d also taken him to get a passport photo, to which he remarked, “It’s not as bad as it could be, but it’s a good thing you never have to see it.”

Matt was currently in Foggy’s debt, as he could hardly imagine how long this would have taken him without him, so he realized he had to answer. “Yeah.”

“You two back together?”

At least Foggy didn’t mince words. “We’re just friends.”

“I thought the basis of your friendship was her stitching you up,” Foggy said as he slid a paper across the counter and put Matt’s finger in a particular place. “Initial here.”

“It’s more than that,” Matt said.

“But not more more.”

Matt sighed. He shouldn’t have told him he had spent the night at Claire’s. “No. I mean, not really.” He added for clarity, “A relationship would be really complicated right now.”

“But you’re sleeping at her place.”

“It is just literally sleeping,” he said. The next form Foggy had lined up with a ruler so Matt could sign his full name on the line. “And it’s also none of your business. It may be the only thing in my life right now that is.”

“Sorry, jeez.” Foggy sounded a little hurt. “Just trying to help a brother out. She seems nice.”

“She is nice.” He realized he was going to have to give Foggy something. “The way we ended ... it makes it hard to start fresh.” Not to mention the amount of time that had passed between them, and all of the things that happened during it that they were unable to share. “We’ll see where it goes.”

“She lodge any complaints about Japan?”

“No, but Marci was about ready to take a chunk out of me.”

“Yeah, I know. Sorry about that, but she didn’t warn me. Are you immunized for Hepatitis A?”

“Have you ever seen me go to the doctor? And I didn’t think she would buy the ninja explanation.”

Foggy continued scribbling. “Well she should have. It wasn’t like I was lying.”

“We’re going to have to buy her something really nice.”

“We? She’s my girlfriend, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“I feel a little compelled to chip in.”

“What makes you think this trip is all about you? I was invited too,” Foggy pointed out, and Matt noted that he wasn’t wrong.

*******************************

Claire wasn’t actually ambivalent about the trip. “I think it’s a great idea. And I’m sure you’ll find some attractive Japanese nurse’s apartment to leap into if you need help.”

“It’s not that kind of trip.” He swallowed. “I _hope_ it’s not that kind of trip. The suit is in storage. And you’re irreplaceable.”

Claire was smiling. He could tell. It was one of the things about his senses that he couldn’t explain. “I think it will be good for you.” She ran her hands through his admittedly scruffy hair. “New places, new things. I’ve heard they’re impossibly clean and their food is really fresh, so you’ll love it. Even if they’re sending you to suicide death forest.”

“That’s not the only thing it’s known for.”

“Yeah, the pictures looked nice,” Claire said. “You’ll have a good time. Or that’s what I’ll assume unless I hear that the Avengers destroyed something in Japan.”

“If that happens,” Matt said, “I’ll call.”


	6. What Matt Lacks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aokigahara is a real place and there are documentaries about it. I haven't been there. I haven't been anywhere in Asia actually, which will change as soon as I someone make my fanfic profitable. Marvel, call me?

It wasn’t so often that Matt experienced hatred for a wholly new sensory experience, but the airport proved to be a doozy. Foggy insisted it ‘wasn’t so bad’ because they had to play Matt’s disability card (which he hated doing) to get through security and to the gate. The airport itself was sprawling in all directions, full of people wearing flip-flops on their smelly feet because they couldn’t be bothered taking off regular shoes for the X-Ray machine, and smelled of stale food and disinfectant. People relied on signage, computer screens, and mumbled gate announcements to get around. Matt spent most of the time trying to hide how overwhelming all of the information was – much less intense than the subway, but more confusing because he didn’t have any sense of the building he was standing in, which wasn’t square. Someone could have spun him around a few times and he would have lost all sense of where he was.

They got to ride a cart from security to the gate – which Foggy was super excited about – and the driver had to say the words “Beep beep, beep beep” because otherwise a beeping sound would confuse security. By the time they reached it and Matt settled on the too-hard chairs in the waiting area, he was in deep sensory overload. He could not tell where he was in the building in relation to where they had entered or where the plane currently was, but he could smell the solid bricks of sugar in the form of cinnamon rolls being consumed by the person behind him, who was sweating and had athlete’s foot. A woman was crying in the phone booth, the tears mixing with her heavy make-up. One of the gate attendants had bronchitis, but at least she was using lots of Purell. The one who checked their tickets had a hip flask. Matt was thinking of asking for it when Foggy returned to his side. “Hey,” he said softly as Matt put his head between his knees and his hands over his ears. “Do you need me to get you something?”

“No.”

“Water?”

His throat was dry from the recycled air. “Yes.”

“They’re going to let us board early. I know that might not sound so appealing, but it’s better for storing our luggage. Space goes quickly. Are you sure you don’t want anything else?”

Beer. Liquor. Grain alcohol. “Yeah.”

“I’ll be right back.”

The whole time Foggy was gone – too long, but not because it was, but because he was tracking time incorrectly – he kept his head down, his hands playing with his cane as he dug it into the worn industrial carpet. He knew he needed to block out the input, one sense at a time, to shrink his world down to his immediate surroundings. It was an old game he learned from Stick – if anything Stick taught him could be considered a game – as he imagined all of the sounds and smells and tastes in the distance getting dimmer, like the lights going out in the distance and the darkness slowly approaching him, while he focused instead on what was easy because of its adjacency, even if it was disgusting. People were generally pretty disgusting, as were the chemicals they used to hide their odors. The heartbeats at the gate were better than at security. People calmed down upon reaching their end goal. They settled into bored rhythms of checking cell phones one last time or fighting over the charging stations. They opened newly-bought overpriced paperbacks from the store in the terminal, ones they would never buy or bother with if they were selecting books from home. The not-so-distant hum of engines, which was more of an irritating squeal, was constant but steady and he could focus on that. By Foggy’s return he was as collected as he would be, though he appreciated the cold water more than he thought he would. Foggy also provided him with a banana – the safest of fruits because of its peel – and some generic saltines.

“Don’t eat that,” Matt said when he smelled Foggy’s reheated breakfast.

“Is that a ‘Matt’ don’t eat it or a ‘food poisoning’ don’t eat it?”

“Roughly in the middle.”

Foggy tossed it and settled for some power bars instead, for which Matt was grateful. He opened his laptop and resumed his Japanese speech software lessons. Matt couldn’t make heads or tails of what he was saying, but it sounded complex, so he was probably pretty far along. Foggy was better at languages than people gave him credit for. He claimed he didn’t know Spanish, but Matt was suspicious. Foggy’s heart gave away a sort of noncommittal half-lie, a subtlety Matt could pick up in Foggy because it was _Foggy_. Foggy, his best friend in the world, who had also had the good sense to invest in some super high quality noise cancelling headphones and even brought the spare batteries they would need for a fourteen-hour flight.

As much as it might have helped him, Matt didn’t like having one of his senses dampened. He didn’t want to explain to Foggy why that was, or what it reminded him of, so he gracefully accepted the gift with the knowledge that thankfully, they wouldn’t work perfectly.

He could see what Foggy meant as they boarded the plane with the other passengers needing assistance. The piercing shriek of the engines was worse inside a cramped, oblong space that made no sense to him, where people rushed to cramp themselves into tight seats, preparing to spend hours doing the delicate dance of somehow not touching the strangers next to them if humanly possible, which it usually wasn’t. The sounds were irritating, the smells were bad, and the air was some level beyond recycling that it was carrying so many germs he was sure he could taste them. Foggy, who thought of everything, had him bring one of his silk sheets so he could drape the seat in it and wrap it around himself. The flight attendant politely asked him to fold up his cane while asking him if he needed further assistance, but in his agitated state he found her trill voice so irritating he couldn’t muster a reply and it was Foggy who thanked her for her concern.

Matt didn’t like drugging himself out of existence, but after twenty minutes on the plane – and that was just general boarding – he was ready to swallow as many doses of Xanax as legally allowed. Even Foggy was surprised at how pliant he was at the suggestion. “I don’t think we can legally knock you out. Sorry you missed the era of Quaaludes, dude. I heard they were fantastic.”

Normally Matt didn’t like things that made him slow and unfocused, but he just nodded, his head heavy from the headphones and the creeping headache digging into his skull. “We should have taken a boat.”

“Yeah, I’d be looking forward to several days of seasick Matt. He can’t be all that different from carsick Matt.”

Matt frowned; Foggy had a point. He just hopped this flight didn’t translate into “plane sick” Matt, though Foggy had a frankly suspicious cornucopia of drugs for dealing with that. Matt suspected Claire was involved.

The take-off was ... bizarre, to put it mildly, but by then he had cranked up the orchestral music and the Xanax was taking effect, and he couldn’t work up the energy to be terrified. He dozed in and out for the first half of the flight. Thankfully, he didn’t dream. He would hear the music first, and that would center him before the cascade of heartbeats assaulted him – most of them resting heartrate for sleeping, some awake, a few people upset or terrified, and beside him, Foggy snored softly (for him), his breath almost in line with his heartbeat, having fallen asleep with the Japanese language instruction still playing in his earbuds. When there were too many heartbeats and too many smells, Matt put his hand over Foggy’s, which was slumped on the shared armrest, and touched his wrist gently enough to prevent disturbing him but with enough force to feel Foggy’s pulse. That was a sound he could touch, that was different, that he could return his focus to, again and again, away from all of the people breathing out nasty germs or belching up airline food and carbonated drinks.

It was the closest Matt came to hell without being uncontrollably upset about it. He still hated it, but he could manage. And daydream about handing in his return ticket and getting home by hiding in the shipping container of a cargo ship.

A flash of bad memory hit him, like being jolted by the crack of lightening, but it was gone before he could identify it, so he took a deep breath and let it flow out of him. Sometimes, if he worked hard enough, he could forget anew.

When he woke again, Foggy was watching a movie in Japanese. “Showoff,” Matt said.

“I barely know what’s going on,” Foggy admitted. “The guy in the blue kimono is mad at the woman. I think they might be husband and wife. That’s all I’ve got. You want me to find something for you?” This was an international flight, and each seat had a tiny screen and dozens of movies and TV shows, but no accessibility options for Matt. “What do you know? They’ve got four episodes of _American Ninja Warriors_.”

“I’ve heard the show is a bit visual.”

“You could at least pretend to be amused,” Foggy said. “There we go. _Law and Order_. You can watch highly-trained detectives bully people into confessions that would never hold up in court. Like no one’s ever heard of recanting because they were under duress.”

“And the defense attorneys are always evil scumbags who just want to get their clients off,” Matt said with a smile.

“Right. Our type of show.”

“Oh, like you’ve never bullied anyone into a verbal corner during testimony.”

It was what he specialized in in mock trial. “Only when they’re on the stand. And they’re lying.”

“The court doesn’t know that you know that.”

“Are you saying I should stop?”

“I’m saying it would make a really good episode of this show,” he replied. “ _Law and Order: HKE._ Hell’s Kitchen Edition. You would be the bad guy because you’re defense but you would get to sleep with the sexy DA.”

“How would I know?”

“Don’t make me slap you. And the DAs are always sexy on this show.”

“It’s a TV. I can’t tell.”

“Ah, so your hottie detector senses have limits?”

“The voices are distorted.”

He watched the show anyway, and they did get hot towels before their meal (the scratchiest of scratchy towels, Matt practically cut his hands on them), and he’d taken so much Dramamine he managed to be hungry enough to eat the least-suspicious-smelling thing on the tray (mixed nuts). While the other people in their cabin were learning why Foggy was named after a foghorn, Matt finally found his way to the bathroom, but not before stumbling around a bit like a dumbass, touching other people’s seats before he found the right wall. It had braille, but he had to find it first, somewhat defeating the point. And it didn’t smell as awful as he expected, just antiseptic.

An enclosed space, about the size of a person. The smell of chemicals, the itchiness under his skin from too much enforced sleeping for too long, the hum of the airplane, the disorientation –

He was an animal trapped in a cage, and he didn’t want anyone to know it. He burst out as soon as he could manage, and followed Foggy’s scent to find his seat. He was halfway there when a flight attendant touched him on the shoulder. Probably trying to help. He probably looked like an idiot, stumbling around when there wasn’t enough room to do it properly. He didn’t hear what she said. His heart was pounding and he was overly focused on trying to breathe.

He almost punched her. Thankfully he stopped himself in time, and redirected it into the seat cushion next to him. And then there was noise and people yelling and someone grappling him to the floor, and he did not want to be on the floor, he did not want to be on a carpet of germs and stains, and as hard as it was to take a deep breath, when he tried anyway he could feel the fibers coming up from the ground. He did not want them going in his mouth.

A lot of things were happening that he did want.

Foggy was yelling at the guy who turned out to be an air marshal to chill, and not pound his face into the aisle floor, and someone got him back up and into Foggy’s aisle seat. She gave him a wax paper bag and told him to breathe into it. He did not know why she said that but he did manage to process it.

“You’re okay,” Foggy told him, which was an outright lie. Matt didn’t have to listen to his heart to know that. “You’re having a panic attack, but you’re going to be okay.”

Oh. That made it so much better. He could breathe now. He wanted to tell that to Foggy, but his throat was stiff and constricted and he couldn’t manage it. Foggy was talking to the other people, anyway, but he left a hand on Matt’s shoulder. He could feel Foggy’s pulse through the fabric. He focused on it.

They gave him ice water and pills. Actually, no, it was cheap vodka on ice, but he didn’t spit it out.

The rest of the flight, he didn’t quite remember. Probably for the best.

*******************************

As they went through customs, Matt was in a haze, and the airport guide asked him several times if he was ill, or had flu-like symptoms. “’m just drunk,” he said before Foggy could offer a fuller explanation. They let him use his cane after they stamped his passport, and he felt like it made a particularly hard tap on the floor, like Japanese floors were different somehow.

Foggy asked him how he was doing, but didn’t mention the panic attack directly. “I might not be totally against the boat idea for the trip home.”

Being blind and having a big white cane didn’t attract the worst kind of attention, because many overly polite people – some who even spoke English – offered to help him with his bags, or to find the taxi station, or if he needed a hotel. Foggy had made all the arrangements, so they technically didn’t need anything, but it was nice, almost as nice as the gust of fresh air when they stepped through the sliding doors into the parking garage. It smelled – well, mostly like an airport, or a congested city, with exhaust fumes and tar from the asphalt, and a bit of something he couldn’t identify, but remembered.

He remembered. He’d been here before. As the Hound.

He’d killed someone here.

Foggy must have noticed him spacing out. “Matt?”

“Sorry, lost it for a minute there,” he said, putting a smile on his face. “We do, um, have a hotel, right?”

“It’s not White Lotus subsidized, but yes.” Foggy turned and said something in Japanese to the cab driver. It sounded coherent, whatever it was, with only minimal stammering. “And please – don’t tell me everything that went on in the room before we got there. I want to at least _pretend_ it’s clean.”

Matt was never so happy to be on a foreign comforter in someone else’s room on a stranger’s used bed. He was still pretty happy about bringing his own sheets, but for the moment he was happy to lie face down with the knowledge that he was no longer on a plane and didn’t have to think about being on one again for some time.

It was a few minutes before he realized Foggy was standing still near one of the walls, and Matt needed a moment in his exhausted brain to realize he was looking out the window. “Does it open?”

“We’re pretty far up, but yeah.” The window flew open and the night breeze flew in, carrying on it the sounds and smells of the people below. Matt could smell fish, and noodles, and cotton candy? He could hear people chatting drunkenly (not unexpected, considering the hour) and the hum of what must have been massive neon lights. They were on the twenty-second floor, so it was all dimmed by real air, the kind you didn’t find on the ground of a city. He wondered if Foggy could hear any of it.

“You can say if it’s a nice view,” Matt said as he climbed off the bed and joined Foggy at the window. “I’d like to know if our ill-gotten Air BnB gains were well-spent.”

“Marci told me not to come home with bedbugs, so yeah, it’s a nice place with a nice view.” He didn’t add, _I wish you could see it_ but Matt would put any amount of money on the idea that he was thinking it.

Matt poked his head out and took a deep breath. “There’s a noodle place across the street. We should eat there tomorrow.”

“And there you go, one-upping me.”

“I can get a couple blocks out,” Matt said, meaning New York City blocks, which were short. “Beyond that it’s blank.”

“You remember what New York looks like, right? It’s basically that. There’s a weird tower that’s all lit up but that’s about it. So exactly like New York.”

Foggy was trying to make him feel better, so Matt offered a reassuring smile. “I don’t know why I’m saying this because I just spent a lot of time passed out, but I kind of want to sleep.”

“Welcome to international travel, my friend.”

Matt felt happy for the first time in longer than he wanted to admit, and that lasted for a few hours, until he had to wake Foggy from a deep sleep to help him figure out which of the ten buttons on the toilet made it work.

*******************************

The first full day was left unplanned, and Matt was embarrassed about how much he desperately needed to recuperate from the stress of the flight, and Foggy just needed to sleep. Matt finally felt less useless when they walked into the noodle shop, he took a brief stroll around, and pointed to someone. “What they’re eating. We should get that.” He did a similar thing in the supermarket, though it involved breaking into a few factory-sealed packages.

“There’s an octopus on the label.”

“It’s not seafood,” he said. It was dehydrated soup. “I think it’s bean soup.”

“Then it has an octopus mascot.”

Between his sense of smell and Foggy’s rudimentary grasp of Japanese, they were able to navigate the store and walk out with food for the trip to Mt Fuji without resorting to overpriced American imports and a lot of soda. They did stop in a McDonald’s so Foggy could order a burger dyed black with squid ink. Matt passed on a taste. “Everything I eat is black.”

“ _Ha ha_ ,” Foggy said with a mouthful of beef and bread. “I’m regretting this purchase a little bit. Do you think it’s rude in Japanese culture to vomit on a sidewalk?”

“I’m just going to assume that it’s rude pretty much everywhere.”

Foggy made a very uneasy swallow. “Let’s um, go somewhere else then.”

Claire was right – Matt liked Japan. The streets were unbelievably clean, people were polite, and the food was almost always fresh. They visited the Meiji shrine, which was peaceful in comparison, and Matt sat quietly and enjoyed the different scents while Foggy went off to do his camera thing.

And he was fairly sure that no one was following them, or if they were, they were doing it very well. He checked his phone but there was nothing new from Natasha, and he didn’t expect there to be. He just wished he had something to go on. A surprise attack in their hotel would not be productive but it would at least end the tension of apprehension. Matt was not as much on his guard as he wanted to be, or had planned to be, between the pills and being unable to fully orient himself in foreign surroundings. The sea of incomprehensible noise of a language he didn’t speak tugged at his ears as his brain tried to put familiar words together but couldn’t find them.

“What if there are no answers?” He confessed his concerns to Foggy over dinner. “Or what if I’m supposed to find them, and I miss them?”

“There you go, thinking this trip is all about you. I was invited. I’m not a ninja.” He did lower his voice when he said the word ‘ninja.’ Seeing how they were in Japan and all. “I wasn’t trained as a child to be a secret handicapped assassin. We’re not all special little snowflakes, Matt.” He had a guidebook open in front of him. It was getting so worn that pages were falling out. “Did you know Jesus is buried in Japan?”

“Jesus isn’t _buried_ anywhere, Foggy. He didn’t leave mortal remains.”

“Not according to the Japanese. His little brother took the fall for him and he became a rice farmer in some place called Shingo. Got married, had a bunch of kids, died at the ripe old age of 106. There’s a monument at his burial mound.” Foggy was probably grinning. “It does sound a little more pleasant than a demon suicide forest.”

“Most things do.”


	7. The Bridge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some people really believe Jesus was buried [in Japan!](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-little-known-legend-of-jesus-in-japan-165354242/?no-ist) Very few people, I imagine.
> 
> [Aokigahara](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aokigahara) is also a real place, obviously, and it's very pretty.

Matt hated nature.

Time – and living in a monastery in the woods for a year – hadn’t changed that. Nature was full of creepy crawly things whose behavior he couldn’t predict. There were wide open spaces his mind couldn’t map, then crowded places where trees grew in patterns that made no sense to him. Humans preferred their buildings square, maybe rectangular, and in a grid format, close enough for sounds to bounce off brick and pavement. In nature things were soft and sound was absorbed. He hated being more blind than he already was.

Still, getting off the train was nice. It was a cleaner, smoother ride than any train he was used to, and three hours was nothing compared to the hellish flight, but when he stepped onto the platform he was relieved to find the ground not shaking beneath him.

Foggy stopped in his tracks. He was holding his breath in awe.

“Foggy?”

“Sorry. Holy shit, Matt, it’s really pretty. That is one friggin’ beautiful mountain.” He took a few pictures. “Did you see pictures of Mt. Fuji when you were a kid?”

“If I did, I don’t remember it.”

“It’s like, all perfect slopes and a round top. More perfect than a naturally-occurring mountain should be. And the snow line is like icing on a cupcake.”

Matt nodded. “Thanks.” It was much too distant for him to have any sense that he was even _near_ a mountain. “Tell me when you’re done.”

“I’m done,” Foggy rushed to say. “Let’s find a cab.”

It was a tourist zone, so it wasn’t hard to find transportation, with several men with reasonably good English offering to be guides as well. “Aokigahara, yes, beautiful, you camping?”

They were both wearing backpacks full of emergency supplies but no, they had decided not to spend the night in a haunted forest if they could possibly manage it. “No,” Foggy said. “We’re not staying the night.”

“You bring paper?”

“Yes.” He held up the party streamers they bought at the supermarket, to find their way out again if they went off-trail. “Just take us to the parking lot, please.”

It was not a long drive and Matt could get more of a mental picture as they approached the trail. The trees were very close together.

“There’s a sign in Japanese,” Foggy said, “for a suicide hotline.”

“Oh.”

“And stuff in English for tourists that doesn’t mention that part of the experience. Do we want the Fugaku lava cave, the Narusawa lava cave, the Ryuuguu lava cave, or Koumori-ana? The last one’s also a lava cave, but it’s called a bat cave.”

“There’s not actual lava, is there?”

Foggy was probably giving him a look. “Just pretty rocks made from lava. I say we go to the bat cave.”

“You want bats in your hair? Because I heard that’s all they really do. Get in your hair.”

“So I can say we went to _the_ batcave when people ask what we did in Japan, duh. And I thought you might like it, Mr. Pointy-Ears Echolocation Man.”

“That’s an awfully long way of saying ‘lawyer.’”

“Can you tell I’m giving you the finger?”

“Yeah,” Matt replied, starting down what he hoped was the trail. “I can tell.”

*******************************

Foggy was a good hiking partner if you wanted to chill with a friend, not gain any peace of mind. He talked non-stop every moment he wasn’t winded or trying to act like he wasn’t winded, spouting off random facts he’d learned about Japan or describing something or just rambling about being on a confusing quest, but Matt did nothing to silence him. The forest was confusing enough already – tightly packed, full of the same smells in every direction, and with tons of tree roots draped across all of the paths because the trees couldn’t work their ways into the lava mounds. Foggy was acting as a shiny beacon of noise and guidance. “Branch! And okay, there’s another branch coming up. After that one.”

“There’s a lot of branches, Foggy.”

“Yeah, and anytime you want to go into secret training mode and not get hit in the face by all of them, let me know, and I’ll stop warning you. Because I’ve seen you dodge bullets.”

“There’s not a lot of other stuff on roofs,” he pointed out. “Just bad guys and water towers. And a few satellite dishes. I might have destroyed a few in my time by accident.” He raised his cane and pointed to his left. “What’s that thing?”

“What thing?”

“There’s a big, um, thing. Like a cave or something. Aren’t we going to a cave?”

“Not in that direction.” Foggy pulled out the map. “There’s nothing in that direction.”

“No, there’s a thing.” Matt searched for other descriptors but this place was confusing enough. “It’s big. It hums.”

“Maybe someone’s camping out there and brought an electric generator.”

Matt shook his head. “Not that kind of hum. It’s – hmmm.” He really couldn’t describe it. An instrument? A person? A living thing? Everything in this place was living. It was so hard to tell.

Foggy was stopped on the trail. “Does it sound like a giant trap?”

“No, I – “ He frowned. “You’re not taking this seriously.”

“Matt, we just flew halfway around the world because we got free plane tickets from a group of people who may or may not be ninjas who can throw fire and lightning bolts at people. I honestly don’t know how seriously to take this.”

“And Howard Stark. Nat said he was in it. Probably.” He added, “It’s mostly a guess actually.”

Foggy was shifting his weight, debating what to do. “All right, if your crazy senses are telling us to go off trail, we’re going off trail. Until the streamers run out.”

“That’s fair.”

Matt only had a direction, but a path to it. They stayed on paths for as long as possible until Matt realized they were circling around what he was now sure he was looking for. There were no heartbeats in this area, not even campers, and he could tell the woods were getting thicker. Foggy was getting nervous when they reached as close as they could get without going off the trail. He studied the map every minute or two, as if it could provide him with new information. “There’s nothing out here, Matt.”

Matt took a deep, focusing breath. Even the animals were quieter out here, when there logically should have been more of them, and he had Foggy’s anxious murmurs to distract him. Even the trees didn’t sway. The wind, what little there was, was stopped by the thickness of the brush. In this oddly silent world he could not give shape to what he was sensing. They were still too far away from it. He pointed. “This way.”

“Those are bushes. You’re asking us to go through bushes.”

“I guess I am.”

“I can’t see ten feet ahead of us.”

“Welcome to my world.”

Foggy shook his head. “And here I am, without my machete. The things I do for you, Murdock.”

They headed into the brush. Foggy led the way, with stops for Matt to assure him they were going in the right direction. There were places they had to climb over logs, or crawl under low-hanging branches. He could feel the smooth volcanic rock exposed in places, covered in moss and dirt in others. There was no way his pants were surviving the journey.

Foggy’s moaning and groaning was interrupted when he stumbled, still on all fours, and disappeared in front of Matt. The humming was so loud that it took Matt a second to recover and find Foggy again. He’d fallen down something. “Foggy?” He crawled forward and found the place where the ground dipped considerably. “Are you all right?”

“Aside from a sore ass, yeah,” Foggy called from below. “There’s a slide. Watch yourself.”

Matt probed the dirt ramp with his cane, but it sank in, and he ended up falling down it and landing on his back. There was open air, indicative of a clearing, and Foggy had a hand out to help him up.

“So is this what you wanted?”

Matt reached out with his cane and found the tree. It was much larger than the others, and it made a strange sound when he tapped it.

“There’s a stone stab at the base. The roots have grown around it.” Foggy guided his hand to the slab, a bit worn by the years, but otherwise resembling a very tall tombstone. With his friend’s help, Matt found the carved circle near the stop, a circle with another, smaller circle inside and six petals. The symbol of the Order of the White Lotus.

“So.” Foggy put his hands on his waist. “We set up camp and wait for guests?”

The tree felt ... strange. Like it was vibrating just the smallest amount, not enough for someone to notice without touching it. He knocked gently on the wood. “It’s hollow.”

“It looks alive to me.”

“There’s something inside,” Matt said. “We should go in.”

“To a tree?” Foggy sighed as his shoulders sagged tiredly. “Trees don’t have doors.”

Matt couldn’t get a sense of what was inside, but he had a good idea of the outside as he set both hands to work feeling its bark skin. His voice created a sound wave that helped. “Can we move the slab?”

“I think we’ll be defacing property in a National Park.”

But Matt had already slid his cane in between the slab and the wood behind it. “Just help me, please.”

Another exaggerated sigh from Foggy but he joined Matt, and it took both of them to pull out the slab, or at least pull it forward enough that it was free of the roots holding it in place. The slab toppled away from the tree.

“I guess ... trees do have doors,” Foggy said. “Heavy ones.”

The hole behind the slab was tiny. Foggy had to remove his backpack to fit, and he still got stuck, forcing Matt to push him through. He fell in, and since they were connected by the backpack, Matt went sliding in with him. He thought he was better prepared but his senses were not ready for the new space, and what he found there, so it took him a minute to recover, and get to his feet.

“Foggy,” he said with a great deal of embarrassment, because he _hated_ asking this question, “What am I looking at?”

“Good question.” There was a tremor in his voice. Whatever it was, it was new to Foggy, too. “It’s ah, um, wall of light? Kind of yellowish?”

“It’s humming.”

“Yeah, I can tell. And it’s moving. The light is moving. It’s streaming up from the ground into the treetop.” Foggy walked experimentally around it. “It’s 2-dimensional. Like a floating wall of light. Looks the same on the other side.”

“A door.”

“You can tell that?”

“It’s a guess.” He could picture what Foggy was saying, but not how it looked. It confused his senses. He only had a vague idea of where it even was in the room. “If I – “ He held out his cane, piercing what he hoped was the object of interest.

“It doesn’t come out the other side,” Foggy said. “It is a door. I think. It’s one fucking messed up door.”

Matt pulled his cane back in. “Well?”

“Well what?”

“Are you ready to go through it?”

“Uh, no, absolutely not, I did not sign up for magic doors in Japanese suicide forests,” Foggy said, which Matt supposed was fair. “But I guess I also didn’t sign up for a fourteen-hour flight and a hiking trip to turn around at the last minute, did I? And I’m not letting you go in alone.”

“We were both invited.”

“Thanks for the reminder.” Foggy was gathering his courage. “If we end up in Narnia, you can have the Jesus lion all to yourself. I want the Santa Claus who hands out lethal weapons to children. I have a lot of questions for that guy.”

“I think you would have more for the Christ allegory animal, but okay.” Matt offered his hand, and Foggy took it. “Ready?”

“No, Matt. I will never be ready. I am never ready for any of your shit.” He squeezed Matt’s hand. “But let’s go anyway.”

Matt smiled, and hand-in-hand, they leapt through the portal.

*******************************

What came first to Matt through his senses, he did not understand. Not at first, and possibly never. It hit him like a slap across the face, and in the time it took for him to begin to process it he landed on unnaturally soft grass. He saw Foggy next to him make an equally pitiable landing. They were lucky for the cushioning bed of flowers because –

He _saw_ Foggy land. He was _seeing_ Foggy Nelson.

He had never seen him before.

Except ... it wasn’t how he remembered sight. He was not looking at a person, or a picture of a person, or the outline of a person that was the best he got from his radar senses when he focused particularly hard. He wasn’t getting a shape he could measure, or colors he could see. He was seeing but in a way he could not see before, and not in a way he could describe.

And that other thing – it took him a moment. No, longer than that. Minutes? Hours? It was hard to tell that he was _looking_ at something, and what he was _seeing_ was color: a type of color he had never seen before. He could not give the shade a name.

“Matt?”

He couldn’t respond. His mouth hung agape as his other senses tried and failed to fill in the gaps. They were in a field of flowers that shimmered even though he saw no light. The sky was dark and starless. He was not seeing a sky but he knew it was there and not with his regular four senses.

“Matt? Are you all right?”

He removed his glasses and closed his eyes. It made no difference; his experience was exactly the same. His eyes still weren’t working, even if his perception had changed. He could smell Foggy, taste his scent on the air, hear his breathing, all of the usual things, but there was this additional thing he did not know what to call.

He wondered if this was as close as he would get to seeing Foggy Nelson. He might have adjusted to it at some point, but missing that picture that everyone had when they looked at him was something that he could not, for the moment, bear. Its absence was too great now that he was reminded of it. He wanted to express these feelings without making Foggy feel bad, but he also wanted to soak in this experience without it being tainted by nostalgia for his sight. He ended up somewhere in the middle when he grabbed Foggy into a bear hug and sobbed into his sweatshirt.

“Matt – can you see me?”

“No,” he said. “I mean,” he stumbled to get out words between tears, “I don’t know. Do I look different to you?”

“Yes.” Foggy hugged back, but not as tightly. He was trying to figure things out on his own end. “You’re the same, but there’s more. I’m seeing more of you. You’re – “ He stammered. “I – I can’t describe it.”

“I know the feeling.” Matt wiped his eyes. This was serious. It was not a time for feeling bad about being blind, particularly when he wasn’t quite as blind. “I can see – I can’t see shapes the way I remember seeing shapes, but I can see colors. But I can’t name them.” He gingerly touched one of Foggy’s long locks, with leaves and branches tangled up in it. “Is your hair still blond?” The last time he asked, they were in law school.

“Yeah. Dirty blond. Kinda greasy and shiny.”

He tried to picture blond in his head – any blond would do – and that was not what he was looking at. But it wasn’t wrong, either. “I can’t explain what I’m seeing, but it’s not that.” It went deeper than that. It also wasn’t consistent. Every time he thought he had a handle on any part of it, it would slip from his grasp. “I don’t know what it is.”

“Hey, join the club. The Know-Nothings-About-Where-We-Are Club. It’s exciting. Everyone should join. Because where the hell are we?”

They were on a hill. Of that much, Matt was sure. Kind of. The portal of light was behind them, stretching up into the endless sky. “I’m still blind, Foggy.”

“Trust me, sight doesn’t help too much. There isn’t a sign.” Foggy stepped a few feet forward and pulled out his phone. “No bars. What a surprise. And hey, the compass doesn’t even work.”

“The sandwiches in your backpack,” Matt said. “Give me one.”

“You’re hungry now?”

“Trust me,” Matt said and was handed a peanut butter and possible-squid-jelly sandwich. He removed a dollop of the butter and smeared it on the nearest rock. “So we can find our way back.”

“I want to say you’re weird, but I think we’re in another dimension that has a different set of colors, so I’m working to scale.”

Matt took Foggy’s arm, partially out of habit, and partially because they were still in some kind of nature, though he had more distance to his “sight” than he normally did. “Is there, um, something in the sky?”

“Yeah.”

“What is it?”

“I think it’s a giant floating whale with feathers.”

“Is it near us?”

“Fortunately not?” Foggy wasn’t doing much better than he was. “Let’s live and let live with the giant whale thing, and hope it feels the same way.”

They only took a few steps forward until Matt’s cane struck something soft and mushy. And talkative. “Ow!”

“Foggy – “

“That’s a mushroom. A really big mushroom.”

“And I have feelings, you jerk!” said the mushroom. Apparently. “You think it’s okay to just hit spirits in the face?”

“Sorry, I – “

“I’m keeping this,” the mushroom said, and Matt’s cane was pulled out of his hands.

“Dude, it just swallowed your cane,” Foggy said. “Give that back. He needs it.”

“Foggy – “ He wanted to say, _Don’t get in a fight with a talking mushroom spirit_ , but he couldn’t make himself actually say the words. “Let him have it.”

“No way, those canes are expensive, I don’t care if you go through like two a month – “

“You want it back so badly? You can have it! Blurgh!” The mushroom spit up his cane, which came hurtling towards them at such a speed that it knocked them back into a flowing stream. Matt tried to grab hold of Foggy, Foggy tried to grab the cane, but the current pulled them both along too fast, faster than he would have guessed a stream that size could.

Matt wondered if he could drown in another dimension. He sensed he was going to find out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did not make that [talking mushroom](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixAOSPKW5s8) up. Turns out the Spirit World is full of 'em.


	8. The Spirit World

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I normally post on Saturday nights, but I'm going away tomorrow so I rushed this chapter, so I hope there's no mistakes. I've been trying to finish the fic (it goes into editing so that's why it's not all posted), which is about 75K words at the moment and will probably have a few more thousand, because I have publishing work that's under contract to do, but I can't write two stories at once. 
> 
> If you want to see what the Spirit World looks like in the Avatar TV show, you can go to my tumblr and I'll put some images up. Or you can just stick with the picture you've formed in your head based on my descriptions. 
> 
> If you appreciate all of my efforts (and Zelofheda's beta job!) please leave a comment below. It means everything to me! You have no idea. I talk a big game as a writer but I'm thin-skinned as hell.

“Hey! Get up!”

The words didn’t register at first, but the tap on his head did. Matt realized he was awake (and that he must have passed out at some point) and mostly under water. He reached for the ground and found shallow earth beneath him, which barely prevented him from panicking. He looked around, if look could be used as a verb here, and found that a creature that resembled a bat who could stand on hind legs was standing on the bridge over the pool, tossing fruit at him.

“This isn’t your grove! Get out!”

The bat-thing in the shell necklace tossed another piece of fruit at him, which he managed to catch. “Um, sorry. I didn’t know whose grove it was. I’m blind.”

“Do you think that makes a difference?” the bat-thing said. “Half the spirits here don’t even have eyes.”

Well, he did have a point. There were all kinds of creatures of different shapes and sizes in the grove, standing next to the bat-creature on the bridge, frolicking in the water, or generally collecting around him. Two hand-sized little men with canvas-blank skin and heads that tilted too far climbed up on his knees, making curious sounds with their necks that sounded like maracas.

And the thing next to him was a giant carrot with arms. So. Matt scratched his head. “Sorry. But can you, um, tell me where I am?”

“The Spirit Grove, of course!” the bat-creature shouted. “Which is for _spirits_. Not filthy humans!”

“Don’t make him go!” the tree ... thing next to Matt said in a very child-like voice. “He’s hurt!”

“Actually – “

“She’s not talking about _you_ ,” the bat-creature said. “She’s talking about the wounded spirit inside you.”

What was he – _Oh_. Matt hugged his chest protectively and turned away from the tree spirit’s prying vine-hands. “It’s an old injury. When I was – “

He was interrupted when the insistent tree spirit reached forward, not touching his skin but reaching _inside_ him, as if there were no physical barriers at all. At first it tickled even though he wasn’t sure what she – because the tree was gendered, apparently – was touching, then it felt like a dental drill hitting a deep nerve, and he cried out and pulled himself away, up onto the grass. _That’s mine that’s mine it’s none of your business stay out of it._ “Ow!” But the pain wasn’t physical. There were no real nerves to be touched. A torrent of emotions punched him in the gut – frustration, abandonment, loneliness. He was familiar with them but he knew they weren’t _his_. The whole notion rattled him enough to decide he didn’t want to be here anymore. “Get away.”

“You are hurt,” said one of the spirits. Maybe the carrot one. “You’re both hurt.”

“No one’s making you stay,” the bat-spirit pointed out. “This place is overrun with smelly humans anyway.”

“Wait, there are other hu- Foggy!” He sat up. “Have you seen a human named Foggy? He’s a little shorter than me, long hair? Probably doesn’t have a demon inside of him?”

“We’re not keeping track of you!” the bat-creature replied. “Go ask the lion turtles!”

Well, that made sense. “Fine.” So far all he had learned was that Foggy was missing, this place was confusing, and spirits were jerks. “But if you see him – “

“We’d better not!”

“Don’t worry about him,” the carrot said. “Go to the air turtle. There are always humans around him.”

“I know this is asking a lot,” Matt begged, “but you wouldn’t know how to get there, would you?”

“This is the Spirit World,” the carrot answered enthusiastically. “We don’t have directions!”

“Fantastic.” He barely dodged another piece of fruit that was being hurled at him anew. “Okay, okay, I’m going!”

*******************************

Foggy’s first breath in what seemed like a long time went so deep, it hurt. The water burned in his lungs and he had a massive headache forming in the center of his forehead. As he exhaled, it dissipated as he was flooded with warmth, and he recognized the feeling of weights being lifted off him. There were two of them, one between his eyes and the other in the center of his chest, just next to his heart, and as he opened his eyes and waited for them to focus he saw two massive claws moving away from him. He was cold on the outside from being wet, warm on the inside from a feeling he couldn’t describe, and his limbs felt heavy.

He sat up and wiped the last of the water from his eyes. There was something fuzzy in the distance, on the retreat, but it was being distorted by a cloud of dust. Foggy squinted, but it was quickly blocked by someone very large (and somewhat smelly) leaning into his vision. Someone with bad teeth and old man breath.

“You going to lie there all day, sonny?”

Foggy could swear this guy – who had to be close to a hundred – had one eye that was bigger than the other. He was bald on the top, with snow white hair sticking out of the sides of his head and at the end of his face in a goatee. He smiled, showing several gaps in his teeth, and a sun-bleached head with spots. Foggy asked, “Um, can I?”

“Well, I suppose you could. Lot of good that would do you.” The man straightened up, and holy crap, he was huge. He had at least a foot on Foggy. A green robe hid most of his body but he seemed more than sturdy, and his bare feet had brass bands around the ankles. “After we just went through the trouble of saving you and all.”

“Oh. Um thanks.” He stumbled to his feet, and yeah, this guy was really tall, even though he was hunched over. “You and - ?”

“Oh nothing, just this big lion turtle over here.” The old man pointed over his shoulder. “Say hello, Great Lion Turtle!”

And that was when Foggy noticed the fucking gigantic lion ... turtle ... thingy ... behind the old man. It had a lion’s face, but the body of a turtle, with long claws grasping at the sand beneath it. It was also about the size of a football stadium. It made no sound in reply, blinking slowly at the miniscule figures in front of it.

“Young people today. Not very observant.” The old man huffed. “What are you doing here if you didn’t expect to see a lion turtle?”

“I was invited here ... I think ... by the Order of the White Lotus.” He wondered if he was supposed to say that out loud. “Have you heard of them?”

“I don’t know,” the old man said. “Are they a philosophical organization devoted to the quest for trust and representing the best that humanity has to offer? And are they also old fuddie duddies who say things like that but when they actually get together it’s all tea and Pai Sho games that take way too long?”

Foggy was confused, not stupid. “...Yeah.”

“Well it’s good to know some things haven’t changed!” the old man giggled. “I’m Bumi, King of Omashu! I used to be a Grand Lotus! When I was alive, anyway. But that was a long time ago.”

“You’re a ghost?”

“Ghost?” Bumi pulled at his goatee. “What’s this nonsense? This is the Spirit World, isn’t it? I’m a spirit!” He leaned in way too close when he talked. “When my body died, instead of moving on, I chose to remain in the Spirit World. I wasn’t sure how it could get on without ol’ Bumi!” He made a pose. He clearly liked making poses. “I was the greatest earthbender of my generation! And I wasn’t bad at bragging about it, either!”

“What’s earthbending?”

“Huh? What are they teaching you kids these days?” Bumi raised an eyebrow. “Earthbending is the greatest of the bending arts! It’s the ability to draw strength from the earth beneath you and mold it to your will. It requires endurance and knowing when to strike, and gathering your strength for just that moment. Like this – Kiyah!” He struck the ground with his left foot by sliding it into the earth, and a wall of soil mirroring his leg sprung from the ground. “You have to be a pretty good earth bender to be an Earth King! Hiyaaah!” He raised both his hands and the ground behind him rose up in the form of a throne, which he promptly sat on. “I practically built half my city! And then I tore half of it down!”

“You have magic power over rocks?”

“It’s the best! I recommend it. Avatars, people with special connections to spirits, they get to bend all four elements, but normal people like us only get one. And they think they’re sooooo great,” Bumi said and Foggy wondered if everything he did wasn’t a little exaggerated. “Mostly people with spirits in them running around here. What about you?”

“Well, I only – Matt! Holy shit, Matt!” He could kick himself for getting this far in the conversation without remembering him. “I came here with a friend – a really important friend. Who ... does kind of have a demon spirit in him? But I lost him in the river! Shit, we have to find him. He’s blind!”

“So? Some of the most powerful benders are blind!” Bumi said. “You don’t think much of your friend, do you?”

Foggy sighed. “That’s not what I meant. I mean, we came here together because we were both invited but I think it’s because he’s a Black Sky and shit, I shouldn’t have told you that, can you not tell anyone? I don’t think he wants people to know.”

“As I have no idea what you’re talking about, it’s not very likely I’ll pass it on,” Bumi assured him. “So we should go find your friend, huh? What’s he look like? He a bender?”

“He’s uh, tall, skinny, blind – I know I said that – brown eyes, not the magic bender thing? Oh, and he’s a ninja. So he’s actually probably in better shape than I am. It’s his ninja friends that invited us here.”

“You’re looking for living members of the Order of the White Lotus?” Bumi scratched his head. “There’s that guy who meditates near the air turtle. Whatis’name. Izo. Come to think of it, he’s blind, too. Are they in the same club?”

“Yes!” Foggy almost did a leap for joy. “I mean, kind of, yes. I think that’s the guy we’re looking for!”

“Why didn’t you say so? I’ll take you to him.” Bumi leapt out of his chair, which sunk back into the ground, and hit the earth beneath him with his fist. A box of stone rose around them. “Hold on tight!”

Which is the point where he turned the world into a rollercoaster. Only metaphorically speaking, but it felt the same to Foggy as their stone cart flew across the land.

*******************************

Matt followed the river for a time, walking against the current, knowing it must _eventually_ lead him back to where they entered the water. The sky above him was a shade of purple – or so he just assumed after guessing a lot and not finding a real answer – and animals he didn’t recognize passed over him in flight. One of them looked like a white buffalo. Weird.

His sense were confusing him. Nature – if he could call it that – still smelled like nature, and the noises were unfamiliar animal calls and sucking wet sounds he didn’t want to think about. But the addition of this non-sight sight provided him with another set of details that did not remain consistent.

And he was lonely. He wondered if that was him, or Black Sky. He still stung inside, like the disrupted surface tension had not resettled. He wondered what Black Sky looked like, if Foggy had been able to see it and hadn’t said anything, if _he_ would be able to see it. Six months ago he hadn’t known about its existence and now he couldn’t make it stop hurting him.

He sat down by the stream and looked into the water. Or, he gave his best attempt to look into the water, but it was just a flat surface to him, and he could see nothing of himself in it. He learned nothing new about his adult face, the one he had never seen. He didn’t know why these thoughts were popping up now, when he had more pressing matters at hand. He needed to find Foggy. He needed to figure out where he was. He needed to find someone connected to the Order of the White Lotus, unless their mission had been to trap him here, in which case they had done their job well and could rest easy.

He supposed he deserved a break. He was cold and thirsty and. He’d lost all of his supplies except the sandwich in his pocket when he he’d almost drowned but he was afraid to drink the water here. He knew Stick would berate him for sitting around, doing nothing, when he was supposed to be on some spiritual quest, but he needed to focus on anything but how it was going.

It was only after he’d settled into a meditative position that he noticed the man across from him. The river, which wasn’t very wide at this bend, was between them, and he noticed the reflection of gold first. Matt expanded his senses but saw only outlines of a tall man in armor, and smelled the metal of armor and the leather beneath it. The man was holding a sword, blade pointed at the ground, staring forward blankly, as if he was not seeing Matt at all. It was much closer to how Matt saw people in the real world, a strangely comforting notion, and he realized the man probably wasn’t there at all. Physically. “Who are you?”

“I am Heimdall, Watchman of Asgard,” the man answered. “And member of the Order of the White Lotus.”

He wasn’t here, and he wasn’t human, but they were communicating. Matt could settle for that. “I’m Matt Murdock,” he said. “Isn’t Asgard Thor’s dimension?”

“He is an Asgardian,” Heimdall replied. “But not a member of the Order. We are joined by things other than our physical allegiances and bloodlines.”

“Okay,” Matt said. “Are you blind?”

Heimdall’s massive face armor moved; he was probably smiling. “I see everything, all at once. It can be blinding.”

“Can you tell me where Foggy Nelson is?”

“He’s on his way to the air turtle,” Heimdall said without hesitation. “He’s searching for you.”

Matt’s shoulders shrunk guiltily. “Can you tell me how to get there?”

“Real distances don’t exist in the Spirit World,” Heimdall replied. “They can be widened or bridged by relationships. You, for example, have a powerful connection to the spirits.”

“So people keep telling me. No one ever taught me how to use it.”

“Izo said that was the case,” Heimdall said. Izo? Wasn’t that someone Sota mentioned? “He asked me to find you.”

“Thank you. I suppose that would be something you could do,” Matt said. “How do I get to him?”

“The spirit inside you can lead you.” Of course, it wouldn’t be something easy. “Izo can call it. But you have to allow it.”

“Then sure, I allow it.”

“Be careful,” Heimdall offered, not giving any further clarification before he disappeared.

Matt took a deep breath. He did not have long to wait until he felt a tugging inside him. While he did not like being probed, or the part of him that seemed to be his Black Sky being further stirred up, he forced himself to relax and be pulled. Or, more accurately, the world collapsed across the distance between him and a massive red tree as he was pulled through it, rather than across it, and he found himself standing before a man sitting in the empty center of the long-dead tree. He was in a lotus position, his hands rolled up in fists and pressed together against his chest. His eyes were shut and covered in scar tissue. His head slightly slumped forward. He raised it to indicate awareness. Matt doubted he could open his eyes, even if he wanted to.

He saw this man. He remembered this man, from when he could have seen him. He remembered him fussing in the back of the grocery shop across from the gym, looking for the right piece of fruit. He remembered him standing on the street corner, the day of the accident. Matt remembered seeing this small, blind Japanese man before, and he knew the precise date and time, down to the last few minutes.

“ _You_ ,” he said to Master Izo. “You _blinded me_.”

The man rose to his feet and stepped out of his refuge in the tree. “I have some experience in the subject.”

That was right – hadn’t Sota said that Izo had blinded himself, to prevent Black Sky from taking over his body? But Matt didn’t care. “You took my sight from me. You didn’t ask; you just took it. You crippled me.” He took a step toward Izo. “Do you know what it did to me? Do you know what it did to my dad? What kind of pressure it put him under, with people feeling bad for me? It killed him. And then – then you sent Stick. Like that was supposed to help me. And then when he abandoned me, did you do anything about it? Did you send someone else to help me train? Did you tell me about the Chaste or the Hand? Did you rescue me when they turned me into a monster? Have you ever done anything but ruin my life?”

Izo denied none of it. “If you’re so angry, hit me.”

Matt balked. “Is this some kind of joke?”

“You are suffered a great deal and you have not found an outlet for your rage. So, if that’s what you’re here to do, hit me.”

If it was had been anyone else, Matt might have hesitated. He was a blind old man. But Stick was a blind old man, and he was no slouch. Even wounded and deafened, Matt hadn’t been able to get more than a few shots off him, and this guy had taught Stick. Matt let the simmering feelings well up inside him, overwhelming his brain like a tidal wave as he lashed out at Izo. He was younger and probably faster. He couldn’t make every hit count, but he could throw a lot of them.

He did throw quite a lot, but nothing connected. Izo, now in a combat stance, slid right past him each time, circling him, always well out of the way of every kick, punch, or wild dash. It was like he had the ability to follow the flow of air faster than Matt could, stepping perpetually around him, shifting direction just in time. The only time he made contact with Matt at all was when he was behind him, and Matt felt the tips of Izo’s fingers against Matt’s neck, tracking his own movements. Eventually he tapped Matt on the shoulder, mocking him silently, and Matt spun around so fast that when he hit nothing, he could not stop his momentum and landed on the ground in front of him.

Matt could not uncoil his body, stiff with seething rage, but he didn’t have to. Izo lifted his hands in the air and the ground around Matt rose and cocooned him, forming solid rock that left only his head and shoulders exposed.

“This is going to feel,” Izo said as he put his hands on Matt’s forehead and chest, “a little weird.”

It did feel weird as the world went out in a flash of what Matt could only belatedly call _light_.


	9. Black Sky

Matt was looking at himself.

He was as he remembered himself. Standing across from him in empty space was a nine-year-old boy, eyes bright with a combination of possibility and fear. His hair, still slightly more red than brown, was slightly curly at the ends. His clothing was loose and baggy, hand-me-downs from Salvation Army. It wasn’t showing, but he knew there were holes in his socks, thought he never minded. He liked things that were soft and familiar, and came from his dad. He liked anything his dad gave him.

The image of him was alive, but it wasn’t him. It was frayed at the edges, as if the whole body was fading in and out with black static, as who he remembered being fell away and became gnarled and contorted, made up of darkness and pain, but still recognizably him, or something that was a part of him, and Matt realized he was looking at a part of himself he’d never seen before, and it was in pain. It was cut off, permanently crippled, and when he reached out it thrashed around. It was locked up un an inescapable prison because it was dangerous. It was a person, but it was a wild animal too, and if it escaped, it would only hurt itself and others.

Matt knew what that felt like.

He reached out and it slithered around him, the two edges of their beings meshing but not quite melding, and he cradled Black Sky in his arms. “I’m sorry.” It could never heal and it could not grow. The roots had been cut from the developing flower to let his own body bloom. It would remain inside him, shriveling but not dead, as long as he lived. “I’m so sorry.” There were two of them but there was only one heartbeat.

*******************************

That all fell away and so did the stone encasing him, and Matt fell to his knees in front of Izo. Behind and above him, he now noticed, were pieces of darkness with light in them in the sky, each one the vague form of a small child, sitting patiently, at least partially dead.

“Those are all the Black Skies I could not save,” Izo explained to him. They swirled around the meditation tree, guarding it in silence. “Black Sky isn’t a demon. It’s a spirit. Spirits reflect the tensions of the humans around them. That’s why they’re constantly in conflict with us.” His own body was alight; he was showing his own Black Sky. “There was a time, long before our history, when spirits and humans lived together, and when they were separated, there was the Avatar, a person to serve as the bridge between the two worlds. But now there is no Avatar, and there is no bridge, and there is barely any contact between our worlds. A Black Sky is a spirit born in a human body. It shares space with the human’s soul, but its inherent connection to the Spirit World is so weakened that it can’t properly grow and thrive. It becomes distorted. It starts to consume everything around it in a quest to get home. We interpret this destruction as evil, and we call it a demon, and the Hand uses it for its own devices. But it isn’t evil. It’s sick and cannot be cured. In time, if it isn’t cut down, it destroys its own host.” He turned back to Matt. “I founded the Hand to try to control it. When they became corrupted, I founded the Chaste to stop them. The more I develop my connection with the spirits, the more tragedies I can prevent. Now, Matthew, would you have preferred if I had left you alone all those years ago, when I knew I could have done something?”

Matt still hurt. He could still feel his Black Sky’s emotions manifested as physical pain in his chest. “I don’t know.”

“I sent Stick to train you because Stick was my best student,” Izo said. “He’s not without his own weaknesses. All of his life, he has failed to form attachments with other human beings, even other Black Skies. Did you ever ask him why that is? Did you ask him where he came from, or what he did when he left you?”

“No,” Matt said. He had been rather focused on himself.

“Stick’s a bit of a mystery to me these days,” Izo admitted. “He hasn’t entered the Spirit World since you went with him to kill the Black Sky in New York, so I haven’t been able to contact him. Since he lost control of the Chaste, he’s hidden himself from both worlds.”

“I ... might have had something to do with that,” Matt admitted. “How do I find him?”

“I’ve been in the Spirit World for twenty years,” Izo explained. “You have more resources than I do. The Order of the White Lotus can only get me so far. But I can start you back on the path you left long ago.”

“I know that’s not exactly what you do, but I’m not becoming a killer again.”

“I would hardly expect that of you,” Izo said, amused, and he stretched the distances between them again by pulling on their respective spirits, until they were flung far forward, beyond the tree, to the edge of a cliff where, just beyond, was a lion turtle the size of a city block, floating in the air. “Great Lion Turtle, please give my disciple the power of air.”

“Um – “ Matt had a lot of objections to whatever was happening, mostly based on a thorough lack of understanding, but he didn’t back away when the lion turtle reached forward with its claws and touched the same spots on his head and chest which Izo had touched. The feeling that engulfed him was warm and flowing, and he momentarily felt like he could sense all of the currents around him, something that faded only slowly as the turtle, who seemed relatively blasé about their presence, pulled away. “Okay. What was that?”

“You now have the power to bend air,” Izo said. “Unfortunately, the only airbender available to teach you at the moment in the human world is Stick.” He frowned. “You might find him under his birth name, which is John Campbell. He was born on an army base in Okinawa in 1946.”

“That’s helpful,” Matt replied, hoping that it was. How many blind kids were born on army bases? But surely he wasn’t still going by his real name? If he even considered that his real name anymore? “Thank you. Is that why you invited me here? To find Stick for you?”

“You may choose not to believe this, but I have tried to guide you through the years,” Izo said. “Particularly when I felt you needed it.”

“And Foggy? Did you think I wouldn’t come without him?”

“Who?”

As Matt could now hear Foggy screaming in the distance and rapidly moving closer, he felt no need to explain himself. He could only try to protect himself from a moving object headed in both of their directions.

“Everyone get out of the waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!” someone shouted who was traveling with Foggy in a very small cart with no wheels. The man didn’t sound panicky, but Foggy’s heart was thundering. The cart – which was stone – came to a thudding halt when it hit the ground, and both occupants were flung into the air. They were only saved from a hard fall because Izo circled around and tossed a ball of air that softened their fall. Right. Airbending.

“Matt!” Foggy barely had time to pick himself up before Matt ran to him and threw his arms around him. “You have no idea - first when I lost you and then I was drowning and a giant lion turtle saved me and this Bumi guy can make things from stone and oh my G-d is that another blind ninja?”

“Not all blind people are ninjas, Foggy,” Matt said, more amused than worried now. “But ... yes. This one is.”

“Matt, you realize the _only_ blind people I know are ninjas. And now it’s like, three. That’s a lot of people.”

“Good to see you’re alive, too.” Matt patted him on the shoulders. “I was looking for you but Heimdall told me you were coming here. I think he was from Thor’s planet, so he was probably a Norse god.”

“I knew they were the One True Faith!” Foggy was just very happy to see him. And messing with him a little bit. “Seriously though, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m okay. And I think I got air magic,” Matt said. It did sound rather ridiculous when he said it. “This is Master Izo. We know each other.” He added, “It’s complicated.”

“If it isn’t my old earthbending student!” Bumi gave Izo a punch in the arm. “Running the White Lotus now, are you? Think you’re hot stuff since you mastered all the elements?”

Before Matt could opened his mouth to question it, Izo explained, “I refounded the Order of White Lotus to bring together the best of humanity across all national and cultural lines. Only some of the members have been able to enter the Spirit World. Even fewer are able to bend an element. The purpose of the White Lotus is to perpetuate peace and seek spiritual perfection. But because of those who would use its resources for destruction, it must remain a secret. If either of you tell anyone of its secrets, or of the location of the Spirit Portal, you will be cast into the Fog of Lost Souls.”

“Can I at least tell my girlfriend about it?” Foggy asked Izo and Bumi.

“No!” they said in unison.

“Will we be able to come back?”

“After the Hand tried to use the Spirit Portal to open a rift between the two worlds, I obscured its location,” Izo said. “The only other way is to meditate in, using your connection to the spirits. That’s how I’m here. My physical body is in another place, safe from my enemies. I only communicate with others by meeting them here. This is also how members of the Chaste communicate.” He snapped his fingers, and from behind him rose a large white creature that looked like a fat bison, except it had white fur with an arrow-like stripe running through it. And it was flying. “This sky bison will take you back to the portal, if you can remember where it is.”

Matt dug through his pockets and handed the wet, plastic-wrapped sandwich to Foggy. “Told you.”

“You don’t have to rub it in.” Foggy unwrapped the sandwich, which was more of a lump of bread now, and held it up to the sky bison. “Okay, buddy, here’s – “ When it inhaled, it took in the whole sandwich and part of Foggy’s arm. “Gross. Are we really going to ride a flying buffalo?” It licked him in response, and since it was the size of a truck, it had a very big tongue. “Ewww. Okay, I think I want to go home now.” “Remember what I taught you!” Bumi said.

“Uh, sure!” Foggy said as he climbed onto the bison’s back.

“What did he teach you?” Matt asked when they were a good distance away.

“On the way here, he taught me how to sing badger moles to sleep. So if you ever see one of those – “

“What’s the difference between them and – “

“Oh don’t even start.”

*******************************

They found their bags returned by helpful spirits to the hill where the portal was, and they said goodbye to their sky bison and returned to the human world, or material world, or whatever it was called.

For Matt, it was like having part of him melt away. The additional sense he’d gained in the Spirit World was gone and even though it hadn’t been seeing, it had been _something_. He was shivering before he even realized he was cold.

“Matt.” Foggy put his hand on his shoulder but did not ask if he was okay. That would have been a dumb question to ask. “It’s night. We have to get back.” Their clothing hadn’t fully dried; the stuff in the pack probably wasn’t better. Foggy handed him his cane, which felt like a stick of ice. “I think if we get away from this tree the phones will start working again and we can call for help.”

Matt couldn’t put what he was feeling into words, but he knew he had to keep it together, at least for the moment. “I ...” He felt the cool breeze on his back as the wind wound its way through the trees. “Master Izo said – “ Was he more aware of the air around him because it was colder than he was ready for or because it was carrying new scents or because he had just lost a level of perception and the others were compensating? It wasn’t just air. It was energy. Energy could be controlled.

He set down his cane, put one foot back so he was in battle stance, and thrust both of his hands forward. The current of air increased so quickly that it blew open a hole in the foliage, providing them with a new path. But it took all of Matt’s energy with it – he didn’t know how to mix them – and his legs turned to jelly. As he stumbled, Foggy caught him. “Jeez, Matt. Tell me when you’re going to turn into a leaf blower next time,” he said. “But that was really cool.”

*******************************

Japan was not without its emergency services, and they were taken to the hospital for mild dehydration and hypothermia. Matt only agreed to stay on his cot because Foggy seemed exhausted and finding a hotel would just cost him more energy.

“You okay?” Foggy kept asking. Matt nodded rather than lying with words. It helped that the hospital was small and rural, and all they gave him were dry clothes (itchy, itchy clothes) and a saline drip. He just wanted to sleep, but he wouldn’t let himself drop until Foggy was safely resting in the bed next to him. Then he pulled out his IV (tape was too itchy, tube kept touching mini nerves) and sank into the surprisingly good mattress. He dreamed of the sky the day he was blinded, but this time, it was purple instead of blue.

The next day they made their way back to Tokyo and rested in the hotel. Slowly, he told Foggy what happened to him. “I saw Black Sky,” he admitted only after stumbling through it for a few minutes, but he did it entirely unprovoked. There was only one person in the world he could tell about how he felt, and the guilt he carried with him still, and that person was in the room with him, giving him all his patience. “I felt him. I-I spoke to him.”

“It was a him?”

“It wasn’t – I don’t know if it matters.” His hands were shaking just thinking about it because he knew he was talking about something that was still inside him, and always would be. “He was like a little kid. A scared kid. And I couldn’t help him.”

“If you could, wouldn’t it – “

“I can’t. But yes, he would have destroyed me. He would have destroyed both of us. If Izo hadn’t – “ He trailed off. Foggy let him. Foggy let him lapse into silence, and give up trying to figure out what to say.

“But you’re here now,” Foggy reminded him. “You can’t change what happened and if you could, you probably wouldn’t want to. All of that other shit, with Stick and the Hand – that was other people doing stuff they shouldn’t have. And you called them out on it.”

“I think I really hurt Stick.”

Foggy scoffed. “I seem to recall him beating the shit out of you and you taking it instead of dishing it back.”

“You know what I mean.”

His best friend sighed. He did know, but it was something they disagreed on. “You can’t let yourself feel guilty about trying to help him when he didn’t deserve it to begin with. You took the high road. He couldn’t deal and that’s his problem. You did the right thing; you’re not supposed to feel bad about _that_.”

Matt frowned. He wanted to agree with Foggy. It all made sense. It was just never that easy. “I think Izo’s right. I have to find Stick.”

“And what? What could he possibly do for you?”

“It’s not about what he can do for me.”

“I’m shaking my head.” Foggy still narrated, mostly because Matt liked it. “Let’s just sit on it for now? We don’t know where he is yet. Let’s let it sit and enjoy the rest of our time in Japan. Go to a sculpture garden or something. Eat tons of raw things and cooked noodles. Try not to run into any other ninjas.”

“I don’t think there’s going to be any.”

“Whatever,” Foggy said. “I see a guy with a white cane, I’m running.”

*******************************

The following day was Sunday, and to Matt’s only mild surprise, Foggy managed to find an Mass for English speakers and went with him, even sitting politely through the service because he wasn’t sure how long it was going to be and he didn’t want to strand Matt anywhere.

“So what does Jesus’s body taste like in Japan? Is it pickled?”

Matt struck Foggy’s leg with his cane, hard enough for Foggy to cringe. He didn’t like jokes about the Host. “You didn’t have to do this for me.”

“Matt, if there’s anything I’ve learned, you can travel to as many dimensions as you want and run into all the non-Christian mythological figures in the world, but you’re sticking with the church. Despite evidence to the contrary.”

“Theology is a little more complicated than guys with swords and hammers,” he replied. “At least, I hope it is.”

That night they found a restaurant that had no formal signage and was not meant for tourists, at least not a certain kind of tourists, and ate whatever was put in front of them (Matt said it was better if they didn’t know what it was as long as it passed the smell test, which almost everything did, except the fermented bean dish and the raw horse meat). It was the best meal of their lives, they decided, until a few hours later, when Foggy discovered he was allergic to puffer fish, and then made further discoveries about the different sprays available from their hotel room’s super-complex toilet. Since internet was twenty bucks an hour, they only fired off a few emails assuring people they were alive, and Matt sent an email to Natasha with Stick’s name and birthplace.

On their final day in Japan, Matt pushed Foggy out the door early and insisted he do all of the tourist things that required sight that he’d been holding off on. With a handful of index cards with Japanese on one side and braille on the other, Matt braved the streets of Tokyo alone, ending up at a Buddhist shrine where they were giving a talk in English. He was familiar with the basics of Buddhism from his comparative religions class in college – life is a wheel of suffering, but by following the eightfold path of right actions, one could be cleansed of negative karma, accumulate positive karma, and leave the cycle of rebirth and enter Nirvana. The teacher was a British man who’d converted to Zen Buddhism a decade before.

“If I would summarize the Buddha’s recommendations in one phrase, it would be this: ‘Cease negative actions, cultivate positive actions, and train your mind.’” The lecture was followed by a brief introduction to Zen meditation. They were still in the city, and Matt was unable to block out the sounds and smells of the urban center in the short time allotted and still follow the teacher’s instructions.

The monk, whose ordained name was Chuso, offered to give Matt a tour of the shrine and monastic complex, which included letting him touch the various religious implements and idols. While most of the statues were of a sitting Buddha with long ears (“a sign of Enlightenment”) and a peaceful but stern expression, there were a few bronze pieces that were more complex, including the one of the Buddha laying down to give his final lesson as he was dying.

“‘I declare to you: All component things in the world are changeable. They are not lasting. Work hard to gain your own salvation,’” Chuso quoted. Next he showed him the Buddha earlier in his life, when he was a starving ascetic, all skin and bones. Matt felt the stone ribcage and the long beard, and beneath him, the stylized throne pattern that Chuso called a lotus throne.

“What color is it?”

“The stone is grey,” the monk explained. “But traditionally lotuses, when they’re painted in murals and on scrolls, are pink or white.”

“What does it mean, when a lotus is white?”

A little confused, the monk answered, “A lotus is a symbol of purity. It is the only plant that grows on water, unsullied by having to touch the ground. White is also the color of holiness or purity in Asia, but in Japan it is also the color of death. It’s one of the most common Buddhist symbols, with the Buddha himself and the eight-spoked wheel of dharma.” Trying to be helpful, he said, “We have a pond with some lotuses here but they’re alive. They don’t have much of a smell.”

“I have a very sensitive nose,” Matt said.

After stopping at the lotus pond, Chuso led him to the room where they stored some of their relics. He was eager to accommodate his guest. It smelled of old wood fused with incense, and there was statuary and small carvings in jade that had been given as gifts to the shrine over the centuries.

There was one idol that was hidden behind a curtain. “This one I can’t let you touch, I’m afraid. But I’ll describe it to you. It’s a standing fat woman with a demonic bull head, carrying a spear in one hand a sword in another. Around its neck is a rosary made of human heads.” He put the curtain back. He was almost afraid to be near it. “This isn’t technically ours. It was smuggled out of Tibet, where their Buddhism is infused with imagery from pre-Buddhist religions. Since the Cultural Revolution, we’ve kept it here as a favor to a Tibetan lama who’s in exile in Singapore.”

“Why so violent?”

“This is a demon protectress. She defends the dharma – the sacred teachings – from people who would corrupt it. But she herself does not take negative actions. Her sword cuts away illusion. Her spear defeats violent impulses. And the rosary reminds people of the inevitability of death,” Chuso said. “There’s a particular legend about this idol, that it’s infused with a spirit. There are rituals to do such a thing. When Buddhism came to different countries, evil spirits tried to prevent it, and highly realized masters were able to tame the spirits and convert them to Buddhism. They ceased negative thought or action and became Enlightened. The actions they take now are pure, beyond the system of positive and negative karma. So they serve mankind and the Buddha’s teachings instead of harming it.” He stepped away from it, leading Matt out with a gentle touch of the arm. “People don’t like to be around this particular idol, though. They find it frightening.”

Matt smiled. “Demonic protectors usually are.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some fanart was done of this [by grumpycakes!](http://devilofmidtownwest.tumblr.com/post/131501374129/devilofmidtownwest-grumpycakes-finished-a)


	10. Floridian Soul Quest

Chapter 10

The flight home was not easy, but it went more smoothly. It was sans panic attacks due to playing fast and loose with the alcoholic beverage policy, even if they ran up a considerable tab doing it. Matt had purchased a CD of Buddhist chants from the shrine’s gift shop, and wanted to enjoy it before he showed it to Father Lantom and asked if it was sacrilegious. Foggy was less stressed too, no longer trying to cram as much Japanese as possible into his brain and instead watching Japanese TV shows with a loose understanding of them.

Marci was there (with a company car) to pick them up on at the airport so they could avoid the three types of public transit they would need to get home with all of their luggage. “I just assumed you would have extra bags filled with gifts for me,” she said.

“Nice to see you, too.” Foggy kissed her. “And please find an event where you need to wear a kimono. Though we might need to hire someone to get it on properly.”

“Whatever, as long as you didn’t bring home tentacle porn DVDs and Hello Kitty merchandise.” She blew a kiss at Matt. “How was your trip?”

Despite being exhausted and still a little tipsy from the flight, he managed to smile. “Good.”

“That’s it? You guys go on an epic bromance version of a honeymoon and all you can say is ‘good’?”

“We went to a demon forest, found a portal to a world of spirits where inanimate objects talk, rode a flying buffalo, and Matt got magic powers,” Foggy said. “Also puffer fish is really good but I’m allergic.”

“Oh, great, you guys flew halfway around the world to do shrums.” Marci was already looking at her phone. “Should we go? I’m allergic to New Jersey.”

“You’re _from_ New Jersey.”

“Exactly.”

*******************************

Natasha Romanov had a hard time believing the story, too. And Matt was leaving out a lot of it.

“Are you sure you didn’t go to Asgard?”

Matt shook his head as he poured her some very expensive sake. “I saw someone from Asgard, but I don’t think I should go into it.”

“So you’re not going to tell me about the White Lotus.”

“It’s um, some kind of philosophical society. If you believe that. That’s what they told me. And then threatened to throw me into a Fog of Lost Souls, whatever that is, so I don’t really want to mess around with it. But they were just a vehicle to get me there to meet Izo.”

“So he’s living in the Spirit World?”

Matt nodded. “He said his body was somewhere else.”

“Is his name Yamamoto Izumi? Because if so, yes.” She resisted the temptation to flip her touchscreen so he could see it. “He’s serving time in Fuchu, a maximum security prison in Japan. According to my files he’s been in solitary for twenty years. The charges are classified. Almost everything about him is.”

“That does sound like somewhere he wouldn’t be disturbed.”

“And this is the guy who founded the Chaste?”

“And the Hand, before they went the wrong way.”

Natasha typed away at her screen. “That would make him over four hundred years old.”

He shrugged and took a sip. “How old is Thor?”

“Point taken. Though this guy is supposed to be human?”

Matt didn’t answer. He hadn’t told her about Black Sky, not to the extent that she wanted him to. She was doing a lot for him, and he wanted to trust her, but it wasn’t easy for him to talk about it with anyone, much less a double agent who’d just had her secrets released to the world and was only spared because she was an Avenger. “He wants me to find Stick.”

“Yeah, your friend Stick,” Natasha said skeptically. “I didn’t find him, but I got pretty close. John Campbell, born 1946 on a military base in Okinawa. Father was a GI, mother was a nurse. After age six he goes off the grid.”

“They probably didn’t have a lot of facilities for the blind there.” It was the forties. “They could have sent him to the States.”

“There’s no records to that nature, but he does start showing up in the 70’s in police records across the United States. Public intoxication, loitering, that sort of thing. But he never stays in one place for too long. He’s been a school janitor at least five or six times. He probably had to stop when they computerized their records. He has a bank account in Pennsylvania that hasn’t been touched since the 90’s, and a state-issued non-driver ID courtesy of the Idaho DMV as recently as 2005, but that’s it. No property, no leases, not even a storage facility under his real name.”

“I know he’s trained other kids,” Matt said. “But I don’t know where they ended up, if they didn’t end up in the Chaste.”

“He’s not much of a repeat customer anywhere, but there is one name that pops up a couple times,” Natasha said. “Julia Reagan. Lawyer in Florida. She’s been his legal counsel for public intoxication in Tampa, paid for his bail for breaking and entering in Ohio and got the charges dropped, currently has a practice in Tallahassee. Primary focus is disability law.”

Matt let the sake pool under his tongue. “Does she have a disability?”

Natasha was giving him a look. He could just tell. “Her Facebook page interests and posts indicate that she’s deaf.”

Another Black Sky. “If anyone knows where he is, it’s probably her.”

“She doesn’t have ties to anyone other than Stick. She’s a lawyer and housewife in Florida.”

“I don’t think she’s an assassin in disguise,” he said with a laugh. “But she has a reason to be loyal to Stick. Not many people feel that way.” He leaned forward. “I’m sorry I can’t tell you more. Maybe Stick will be able to.”

Natasha paused before answering. “After the SHIELD files went public, most of my old associates ducked for cover. But not all of them. Some of them have gotten in touch. They think because I’m an Avenger I can bail them out of something or other, or get them asylum in America.”

“Saving DC may have given them that impression, yeah.”

“Not everyone feels that way about the helicarrier incident,” she told him. “But one of them was someone I knew when I was young. We grew up together. Draw your own conclusions.” So, another Black Widow. “She told me that Inna – that’s my teacher with the lotus tile, the one who knew Stick – had a daughter. The father had worked in the Ural Mountains in a uranium mine, so the child was born severely deformed, and no one was surprised when she ‘disappeared.’ But my friend always had a hunch that she wasn’t really dead. Inna would get letters from abroad that somehow got past the mail censors. She would burn them after she read them.”

“This may seem rude, but how deformed?”

“No arms. Partial shoulders. Even in an ADA-friendly country, she would have had trouble.”

Matt bit his lip. “That’s probably where Stick came in. Is Inna still, um – “

“Her death isn’t confirmed in public records, so I have no way of knowing.” She put her touchpad down. “If you find him, will you ask about her?”

“Of course.” It was the least he could do.

*******************************

To Matt’s credit, he managed to convince Ms. Reagan to answer his texts in the first place.

“If you’re serious about it, I’m willing to meet in person.”

“That’s not so easy for me.”

“Then you’re not that serious.”

He figured he could manage three hours on a plane, now that he was an experienced world traveler. And this was important. As important as the trip to Japan had been.

Of course, Foggy didn’t like it. “You don’t even know he’s there.”

“I have to find him.”

“The guy who told you to do it hasn’t even been in the physical world in decades because he’s more interested in meditating under a tree. A tree that’s not even _real_. He could have done some of the legwork.” Foggy was glaring at him, Matt could tell, but he was more worried than angry. “Last time you spoke to Stick, he beat the shit out of you. And you let it happen. Do you have a game plan this time?”

“He needs my help, Foggy.”

“I’m not sure that he does. Seems more like he wants nothing to do with you. Which I’m _happy about_. He’s like an abusive grandpa that you tolerate at Thanksgiving at best.”

“You’ve only met him once.”

Foggy stood and started pacing the room. “I’m not going to talk you out of this, am I?”

Matt didn’t need to answer.

“G-d damnit, Matt. And don’t ‘language’ me on this one. If he doesn’t help you on your Floridian soul quest or whatever, I’m going down there with an air horn and mace and beating the shit out of him.”

Matt just took another sip of his beer and said, “Good luck with that.”

*******************************

The airport was still miserable. The plane ride was still miserable. He didn’t take a Xanax this time, focusing on his breathing instead. It wouldn’t have been a bad time to spontaneously meditate into the Spirit World, but it didn’t happen.

Julia Reagan was nice enough to meet him at the airport. “I didn’t think you’d actually show.” She explained that if he kept his face in her general direction, she would probably be okay, but her husband was there to help with signing.

“Stick can always tell where I’m looking,” she explained at the diner near the airport. Apparently if Matt didn’t past the smell test she would put him right back on a plane, but he knew before she had even called out his name that she wouldn’t. He didn’t have to say anything. These were just formalities. Matt was experienced enough to notice another Black Sky around.

“Were you born blind?” From her, he supposed it wasn’t really a rude question.

“Chemical spill when I was nine. I was told it was an accident.” He waited for her husband to do some translation, whether it was needed or not. “You?”

“Deaf from birth. I didn’t meet Stick until I was sixteen. He was the janitor at my high school. He convinced me not to get cochlear implants.”

“How did a janitor do that?”

“When he destroyed the testicles of the quarterback for raping my best friend, I realized something was up. No one believed the janitor was the guy dressed up like a ninja, leaping from the rooftops, but I just ... knew. I knew it was him.”

She was nicer as she opened up to him. She was probably very personable in her day job and in her regular life. “Did he tell you why you shouldn’t get implants?”

“Have you ever tried to get your sight fixed?”

“I was on an organ donation list for years,” he explained. “But it’s too complicated a case. There’s neurological damage from the toxin, and my brain has developed around the area that processes visual information. Even if donation eyes worked, they probably wouldn’t work well. Stick told me sight was a distraction, that I was better off without it. He didn’t say why. I didn’t even know it wasn’t an accident until six months ago.”

“And why are you looking for him now? Because you want answers?”

He shook his head emphatically. “Because I think he needs help.”

“With a mission? Whatever it is he does with his life?”

“No, just help. The general kind. I’m worried about him.”

There was a pause. She was probably assessing how genuine he was being. “Did he train you? As a soldier? Because he didn’t do that with me, but I know he does it.”

“After the accident, he helped me master my senses. But we didn’t finish the training. I’m not here for that. I’m not a fighter anymore,” he said, lying just the littlest bit to himself and her. “I’m a lawyer, actually. Defense attorney.”

She made noises to indicate she was impressed. “I haven’t spoken to him in a few years. He only calls when he’s in jail. But he owns a trailer home not far from here. It’s redneck country – he paid in cash, no questions asked, leaves it empty for years. It’s a place for people who don’t want to be bothered. And cook a lot of crystal meth.”

Matt raised his eyebrows. “Any way I could get a ride?”

*******************************

Julia and her husband were willing to drive him as far as the entrance to the trailer park, but no further. She was not interested in interrupting Stick from whatever he was doing, if he was even there. “Call me if he’s not,” she said. “Good luck.” It sounded like he would need it.

It was indeed rural, deep in swampland. He could smell rust and decay from the trailers themselves. Where there were actual tires on the houses, they were out of air and melted by the heat. It wasn’t summer, but the humidity made it like walking through a steam room.

At least Southerners were known for their hospitality. “Excuse me,” he said to the man sitting in a folding chair, smoking hash in jeans and nothing else. His skin was hot from a sunburn. “I’m looking for the trailer in lot 4C.”

“Suppose you can’t follow the signs,” the man replied.

He put on his winning smile. “I’m afraid I can’t.”

“You his kid or something?”

_Bingo_. “It’s not hereditary.”

“Because I don’t think he wants visitors.”

“I’m not here to make trouble,” he assured him. The man’s paranoia was probably mostly coming from drugs. “I can just wander around if you want. I’ll probably find it eventually, after I trip over a few things.”

“Fine, fine.” The man rose from his chair, which didn’t seem easy. His psyche didn’t lend itself to physical activities, and Matt was grateful he couldn’t see him. “Let’s find your not-Dad’s trailer, and then I am getting the fuck out, so you better hope he’s in there.”

Matt had the feeling that he was. “Thank you.”

The trailer owner made no attempt to lead him, just stalked off in a particular direction, and Matt was happy about that. The road was uneven. The pavement was very old, with some of it sunk into the swampland with the rising water level, and weeds making their way into the cracks. People had fires in front of their homes, mostly in barrels, or because they were cooking something. The smell of cheap beer was everywhere.

“This is it,” the man said, pointing to the trailer in the back. There was an oil drum full of ash and some lawn chairs in front of it, but no one was present. “You deal with him. I sure ain’t.”

“Thanks for the help.”

The man didn’t stop to reply. He was eager to put as much distance between him and this trailer as possible, as fast as possible.

The door was locked, but the lock was broken. It was jammed, but he managed with his cane. “Stick?” He could hear the heartbeat, slow and steady. He could sense the presence of another Black Sky. It wasn’t easy to do, but he was getting better at it. “It’s Matt,” he said, completely unnecessarily. “Murdock.” He was just filling the empty space with his words. Inside, the air was stale and musty. The humidity had ruined anything fabric. He felt around to find the cheap cabinets that made up the kitchen, and the oven that was missing most of its knobs for the burner. The counter was stained and uneven and the fake sheet of granite was starting to peel off.

There were two beds, one on either side of the trailer. Neither were occupied or even contained proper sheets and blankets, just foam mattresses covered in junk. Clothing, empties, a handheld radio.

At the opposite end of the trailer, beneath the fake wooden paneling, was a tatami mat on the ground. There was a single nail in the wall holding up a scroll made of rice paper. Matt had just been to Japan; he knew that even traditional Japanese homes had soft mattresses and round pillows for people to sleep on, but Stick was laid out on the raw tatami, with his army-style jacket serving as a blanket.

He smelled heavily of vodka. Matt found its source – the several bottles of the stuff, one so large it was plastic and had a handle – and all of them were empty or almost empty. And Stick wasn’t just sleeping – he was passed out cold. Not knocking what else to do, Matt checked his pulse. He was fine, just very, very drunk, and he hadn’t showered in a while. His wrist felt slimmer than Matt remembered it.

Matt shook his head with concern. “ _Stick_ ,” was all he could say, and he deposited himself on the empty mattress. He debated waking Stick up and forcing some fluids in him that weren’t alcoholic, but he wouldn’t like being shaken awake, so he wouldn’t do it to his mentor. Former mentor. Whatever.

Matt sat silently, listening to the crickets, and with his head bowed, he prayed. He didn’t know what else to do, and it filled his head with meditative thoughts that went so deep that he must have drifted off, because his head was bowed low when he was struck hard across the face by his own cane.

“ _What_ ,” Stick demanded, “ _the fuck_ are you doing here?”


	11. Turning the Other Cheek

Stick probably had his suspicions. He didn’t wait for Matt to answer. He opened his mini-fridge to pull out a new container of vodka and began drinking straight from the bottle.

“Master Izo told me how to find you,” Matt answered when he’d recovered from the blow.

“Finally found your way into the Spirit World, huh?” Again, he didn’t need an answer. “And he told you to find me.”

“Yes, but I would have come of my own volition. I know that – “

“Listen to me, you little shitstain.” Stick’s voice managed to be determined despite his body from being shaky from both a hangover and dehydration, neither of which he was helping by pouring fuel on the fire. “I don’t give a fuck why you came. I don’t exist to make you feel better about yourself. You wanted me out of your life and now I am. So get the fuck out of mine.”

He shook his head. Stick would be able to tell. “I can’t do that.”

“It wasn’t a request.” He didn’t even put the bottle down. He struck Matt again, this time across the face with his fist so hard that Matt tumbled to the floor. “You get the fuck out of here.”

Matt swallowed with determination. “I want to help you.”

“I really have to wonder how far the education system in this country has sunk, if you got this far in life while being so stupid.” He kicked him in the side, and when Matt rolled over into a more defensive position, Stick grabbed his own cane and beat him over the shoulders with it. “Jesus. At least fucking defend yourself!”

“I’m not going to fight you.”

“Then what use are you to anybody?” This time, when Stick hit him, the aluminum rod came down hard enough on his collarbone that it almost broke it. “Get up! Get the fuck up!”

Matt had never known Stick to lose his temper. He had to remind himself he was here to help. He was not a monster. He did not want to hurt anyone. “Stick, you’re drunk. You’re probably low on fluids and I can’t smell a damn thing on you that indicates the last time you ate something. When I found you, you were passed out cold, and if I leave, you’re going to do it all over again.”

“So you’re smart enough to figure out something. Good for you. Pat yourself on the back, Matty. You’re a fuckin’ doctor now.” He kicked him in the stomach. Matt came very close to losing the contents of his stomach, and while he tried not to be sick all over the cramped trailer home floor, Stick grabbed him and shoved him down the steps and out the front door. He hit the pavement in a way that almost dislocated his shoulder. “And fuckin’ stay out!”

Day 1. Not so great.

*******************************

“Yeah, I found him,” Matt said as he made his way on the mostly-even sidewalk to the grocery store that Stick’s neighbor had been kind enough to direct him to. “He’s – his usual self.”

“Great. Say hi, tell him whatever you want about Izo, head on back,” Foggy said.

“He needs someone, Foggy.” He was not interested in any resistance on Foggy’s end. “Just for a few days. Until he cleans himself up.”

“That’s going to happen in a few days?”

“That’s what I’m going to give it.” He could hear the humming neon from the grocery store windows. He needed to concentrate. “I have to go.”

“Take care of yourself.”

Not sure if he was going to listen to it, Matt tapped on the ground until he found the automatic doors, and walked inside. There was a heartbeat at the counter, a heavy smoker who was older in age. “Excuse me.” He didn’t look precisely in his direction. “If it’s not too much trouble, can I get some help finding my groceries?”

He offered to wait politely, but the manager called his assistant out of the back, and they went up and down the aisles, buying anything Matt could think of. Bottled water. Gatorade. The healthier of the snack foods. Cleaning supplies. Raid and mousetraps. A cheap pack of spare sheets with an awful thread count. Deodorant. Some fresh fruit. “Thank you,” he said. “Um, I hate to ask this, but is there any way I can borrow this cart and return it later?”

They gave him a ride instead. When he returned to Stick’s trailer it was late, and he found the door locked and bolted. He stashed the groceries under the trailer, where it was cooler, and camped out on the front steps.

Stick didn’t come.

*******************************

After a while Matt was so tired that sleeping in a curled up ball outside of Stick’s door was seemed like a good idea, but he regretted it when he woke, already overheated and sore from the position he was sleeping in. He also found the door unlocked and Stick nowhere to be found.

Matt sighed and got to work. The mini-fridge was probably beyond saving, but he cleaned it out anyway, scrubbing with the heavy product that left his eyes burning and his nose dripping. For the oven cleaner, he had to clear out and sit in the shade behind the trailer, drinking Gatorade and checking his email. Most of the cupboards were empty, so he dusted them and filled them with food. The shower wasn’t working properly – he could make water come out, but only to spray in every direction. “New showerhead,” he said to the note-taker on his phone. “Soap. Shampoo.” Stick didn’t have any shaving equipment, either, but the Stick he remembered from the past was usually clean-shaven. “Electric razor. Question mark.”

He tossed what little food he did find, as the humidity made everything soft and moldy at a faster rate in the rest of the country. The tap water was awful, but he washed his face in the sink and saved the bottled stuff for Stick.

He paced the trailer, and curiosity eventually got the better of him, because he reached out and touched the rice paper scroll on the wall. He couldn’t tell anything about it other than it was painted in broad strokes of ink.

“The fuck are you doing?”

Of course, this would be the moment Stick would choose to reappear. “I made you sandwiches.” Stick would hate them. He would complain about the processed white bread and the fake nuts used in the peanut butter and the chemical aftertaste. But so would Matt, thanks to his teachings.

“You do not touch my fucking things,” Stick said.

“I’m sorry, I – “

“Place smells like a chemical factory. Did I give you permission to just go through my stuff?” He opened the door to the mini-fridge. “And you didn’t even buy booze?” He picked out a cold vitamin water and tossed it at him. “You expect me to drink this shit?”

“Alcohol is dehydrating. It’s gotta be at least eighty degrees – “

“I don’t care what temperature it is.” He hit him with his cane, too fast for Matt to dodge. He struck him in the head, then again on the back. “I told you to get the fuck out. You deaf now?”

“I can smell, too,” Matt replied. “I’m not going to let you drink yourself to death.”

“You’re not going to _let me_?” Stick laughed, but it was his cruel laugh. “You think you can boss me around? You really think you know better than me, do you?”

“Stick – “

“If you want to be so respectful, listen to your elders, and get the fuck out.” He grabbed Matt, hard enough to almost tear the fabric of his clothes, and hurled him down the wood steps. “And stay the fuck out this time!”

Matt rolled onto the pavement and sighed.

Day 2. Not a lot better.

*******************************

He made another slow walk to the grocery store. It was hot and he was starting to feel his injuries. It reminded him of training with Stick, when he was truly too young to defend himself. He remembered being so used to being tired and sore he didn’t know what to do with himself when his wounds healed. He remembered hiding it from the nuns. He remembered trying to kneel at Mass and not succeeding all the way, and one of the nuns striking him with a ruler. It felt like being hit by a fly in comparison.

At the store he purchased more food, making the assistant carefully read the ingredients first. He bought a new showerhead, shampoo, and the other things on his list. This time they fit into grocery bags, so he didn’t bother anyone for a ride. Ten minutes into the walk back to the trailer park, he was regretting it.

“Are you okay, son?”

Matt had stopped and taken a rest on a park bench, but he had drifted off sitting up. He knew some of the exhaustion was sun exposure, something that was hard for him to gauge, but must have been pretty serious by now, because the exposed parts of his arms and face were burning. “Yes. Um, hi. I mean, yes.” He took a second to focus. Not a cop – no gun, no trooper hat, no car nearby. “Sorry.”

“There’s a sign,” the man said, “about people sleeping here.”

“I didn’t see it.” He purposely got his cane out, spending extra time unfolding it, and used it to prop himself onto his feet. “Sorry. I’ll get going.”

“Do you have somewhere to go?”

The real answer was no, probably not, he was probably spending another night on Stick’s stairs and he had accepted that, but he realized that was probably not how the question was asked. In three days, he hadn’t slept much, hadn’t showered, and hadn’t changed his clothes. He was walking around with plastic bags of groceries and sleeping on a park bench. Now his face was red from blushing. “It’s not what it looks like.”

“But you do have something?” The voice was gentle, probing. Not entirely believing Matt.

“Yeah I – I’m helping out a friend. He’s being ... difficult. I thought I was staying at his place but – “

“So you don’t.”

Matt was tempted to yell, _Why the fuck is it your business?_ But he restrained himself. He wasn’t Stick. “I know there’s a motel – somewhere. But I don’t have a car. And my cell phone’s been sort of in and out down here. If you want to help me, I could use a ride – “

“You’re going to trust a strange man you found in the park with a ride?”

“Do you mean me any harm?”

“No.” He wasn’t lying, of course.

“Then yes.” He added, “Just because I’m blind doesn’t mean I’m naïve.”

“So you can just tell. If people are good or bad.”

“It’s not as fun a skill to have as you might think,” he said, managing a smile. His jaw ached from where he was struck earlier, and he flinched.

“Well I’m a very trusting man, too. So if you need a bed tonight, there’s one in the basement of my church. No charge. And it’s walking distance, if that makes you feel safer.”

The man wasn’t lying. “You’re a priest?”

“I’m a pastor. My name is Paul.”

Matt offered his hand out in front of him, like a blind man. “Matt.”

“Okay, Matt. Can I help you with your belongings?”

“They’re for someone else.” If he was going to accept help from this man, he should just accept it. “Yes. He won’t miss them.”

“Do you think you should go to a doctor? Get that ear checked out?”

“What’s wrong with my ear?”

Paul shuffled his feet. “It’s bleeding.”

Matt reached up his throat and found the trail of dried blood. “Oh. I must have fractured my jaw. It’s fine. Heals itself.”

“You do this before?”

“It’s complicated,” he answered, rather than tell a lie, like that he fell a lot.

The church was two blocks down the street. It was a tiny converted house, barely enough room for a small chapel and a side room. “First Baptist. You a Christian, Matt?”

“Yes.”

“You hungry?”

He wondered if Paul was going to get himself into trouble, offering dangerous strangers places to stay. “I have food.” He had trail mix in the bags somewhere. “You don’t have to turn on the light,” he said when he heard Paul flip a switch.

“Believe it or not, _I_ need to see where I’m going,” Paul said. “Sorry, that was – “

“It’s fine. Really.” He tried to sound less harsh. He didn’t know why his voice was so rough. “I’ve heard them all.”

“I bet you have. American cheese sandwich sound okay?”

“Yeah. Thanks.” Part of him tried to will himself into refusing it, but he ignored it, figuring his penance would be trying to chew it all without irritating his jaw.

He ate in silence. Paul got a few more words out of him, but Matt was getting really tired. Now that he was sitting down indoors, with air conditioning keeping things at a reasonable, drier temperature, he couldn’t imagine going out again, to finish the trip and face Stick’s insults and abuse. The pastor didn’t push him anymore, though he politely asked him to wash up before bed. Matt figured he would probably stain the sheets otherwise. His ear had stopped bleeding, but he had to check himself to see that there weren’t any other open sores. He just found bruises, which was okay. He could deal with bruises.

He called Foggy and left a message about how he was doing. It was full of lies.

Day 3 – More of the same.

*******************************

Waking up did not feel good, but a shower did. It made him feel like more of a person, but somehow made him more hesitant to face Stick again. Was he doing it wrong? Was there any way to do it right? That probably wasn’t possible with Stick.

Still. It was worth trying.

He was packing up his things when the pastor came by to give him coffee and a terrible Floridian bagel. “Here.” He offered his card. “I realize you can’t read it, but if you’re in trouble, maybe someone can read it for you.”

It was embossed, but Matt still couldn’t made out the individual numbers with his fingertips. If he’d really wanted the contact information, he would have opened up his phone, but he didn’t have the energy. “Thanks. For everything.”

“Can I give you a lift? It’s hot outside.”

“Seems to be that way every day,” Matt said, but accepted the ride as far as the gates of the trailer park.

He wasn’t surprised to find that Stick was blackout drunk again. The only difference was, he was in a lawn chair in front of the trailer, where the shade was slowly receding. He was sitting up but his head was rolled all the way back and his arms were hanging at his sides. His lap still held a bottle of warm vodka. Matt took the bottle and put it in the freezer, and began unpacking the groceries. There was a toolkit under the sink, so he managed to fix the showerhead by replacing it with a new one, but not after soaking the upper half of his body several times over and wasting a lot of water. He cleaned the stall, putting in new soap and detergent. He swept out the trailer again, and left what he hoped was a shine on the metal faucet. The place was starting to feel as habitable as it would probably ever get.

He was shaking out Stick’s tatami mat when his so-called host got to his feet, arms tense, his cane clenched in his hand.

“I got some beef jerky at the store,” Matt said. “It’s supposed to be organic but it’s a lie. It’s just better than the other brands of jerky.”

“Where’s my booze?”

“In the freezer. I was going to buy ice pops, or something else that would freeze, but it would have melted.” He rolled up the tatami mat and set it on the bed. “Your shower is fixed.”

Stick grumbled. He wasn’t even coherent enough for a real conversation.

“You’re probably still dehydrated,” Matt pointed out, and offered him a bottled water. “You’re in Florida. You have to drink.”

Instead of taking the bottle, Stick grabbed Matt’s arm and pulled it in, twisting it as he pulled Matt into a hold. “I don’t need you to tell me what to do.” He pressed down on Matt’s throat, choking him. Matt thrashed; it wasn’t a hold he could get out of. “I’ve made it this far without you _just fine_.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Oh, now you know better?” Stick released him and spun him around so hard Matt got the spins. “I’m fucking sick of your self-righteous bullshit. What do I have to do to get you to leave?”

Matt swallowed bile. “I don’t know. But you won’t kill me.”

Stick grinned and struck him with the cane. Matt had braced himself for it, but it wasn’t enough. It came down on his head so hard he staggered and fell forward, this last thought about how unexpectedly hard pavement really was.


	12. The Element of Freedom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will make you cry for Stick, G-ddamnit!

Chapter 12

Matt came to slowly, one sense drifting in at a time. First, there was touch – his skull touching the ground, his face pressed against the pavement, his whole body limp and heavy. Then, the smell of blood, and mold, and all of the awful smells hot wetness brought. He could hear the sounds of night – of people drinking and shouting, and cooking, but his ear was ringing and it all stayed away as a distant clamor.

He must have been lying there a couple of hours because it was dark out; it was easy to tell when it was sunny or not in Florida. He couldn’t quite get to his feet, so he stumbled and crawled around until his found his cane, and used that for balance. Everything was slightly to the left and muted. _Concussion_ , he thought to himself. He focused on the trailer, but Stick was either hiding his heartbeat (ninjas could do that, right?) or out, and the door was locked again.

Everything was harder than it should have been. He shouldn’t have shown weakness in front of Stick. Maybe he shouldn’t have shown up at Stick’s at all. Why couldn’t he grasp that point? He couldn’t hold on to any one thought too long. It would slip from his mental grasp no matter how hard he squeezed.

He found himself near the entrance to the trailer park. He’d been walking and the pavement became swamp again, for what reason, he didn’t know. Someone was talking to him. It wasn’t Stick. It was a female voice, one of the anonymous ones from the other trailers, and he tried to talk back but it didn’t quite come out.

“Just lay down,” the woman was telling him. A different woman. Her hands were gloved in latex and the radio clipped to her shoulder hissed. “Easy.”

He stiffened, not like she wanted him to. “No hospitals.” He was in an ambulance, talking to an EMT. Of that, he was pretty sure. The sirens were near deafening; he could barely hear her response. How had he agreed to get this far? He must have passed out again. His face felt icky; she was putting a bandage around it. Right. Concussion.

She didn’t listen to him. “Can you open your eyes for me?”

“Blind,” he said.

“Is that an old injury or new?”

“Old. The new’s – um – I don’t know.” He wanted to say, _He didn’t mean it_ but he held his tongue. Also, he probably did mean it.

“I still need you to open your eyes, okay?” She was probably checking them. She said something to the other heartbeat there, lots of medical terms, and Matt wondered how he could communicate that no, he did not want to go to the hospital. Where was Foggy? Foggy would tell them. But the cot was comfortable despite the threadbare nature of the over-bleached cotton sheets.

He’d drifted again, something he knew only because he was in a different place. The emergency room. He knew the sounds, even if it was a much smaller place than any hospital in Manhattan. Someone was holding his hand. It wasn’t Foggy. When Matt squirmed, the man pulled away, full of apology.

“Hello Matt,” the voice said. “I’m Paul. Do you remember me? We met last night?” It was last night already.

“The minister.”

“Pastor,” Paul said, amused. “You’re getting closer.”

“I don’t want to be in a hospital.”

“You should at least stay and hear what the doctors have to say,” Paul said very gently. “It’s only polite.”

Southern hospitality at its finest, he supposed. He sighed, trying to get a handle on his senses. “No drugs.” They’d already given him something when they started the IV. Something mild. Maybe he’d been awake for it. It was enough to throw him off. He wasn’t sure how many people were in this part of the hospital, or even behind the curtain that separated beds in the ER. Not a lot. Less than ten. “The guy next to me – “ He pointed to his right, “ – septic. Needs antibiotics.”

“You a doctor, Matt?”

“Needs antibiotics,” he repeated. “I don’t like hospitals.” He clawed at the neck brace, but he couldn’t quite find the clasp. His fingers weren’t quite doing what he told them to do. “Can’t hold me against my will.”

“If you’re a danger to yourself or others, we can. Just temporarily,” said a new voice. A doctor. Female. Scrubs, disinfectants, just wiped her hands with brand-name Purell. “We can take this off. Just give us a minute, Mr. Murdock.”

How did they know his name? They must have found his wallet. Had they called Foggy? No, there was no way they could have figured out Foggy was his medical proxy without more information. And the pastor – his card was in Matt’s pocket. “Paul.”

“Yes?”

“The card. In my pocket.”

“You don’t have any local numbers in your phone, so yes, they called me.”

He took a deep breath as the doctor removed the brace. “I need you to keep still for a few minutes longer if that’s okay with you, Mr. Murdock.”

“Matt,” he said. “Name is Matt.”

“Okay, Matt. We’re going to put some stitches in and we need to shave a very small part of your head. Your hair will cover it. Would you like something for pain?”

“No drugs,” he said. “Used to stitches.”

She insisted as the nurse brought her the supplies, but it was Paul who stood up for Matt. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“You told me you’re a Christian, Matt. Is that true?”

“Catholic.”

“Really? I bet you can’t recite the Apostles’ Creed.”

He scoffed at that as the doctor shaved a tiny patch of hair. “Don’t be ridiculous.” Matt flinched as the needle came in without warning. He was used to the way Claire tensed up before she punctured the skin. “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth – Ow.” He hissed, embarrassed that he was suffering under this easy, run-of-the-mill procedure. “And – and in and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord: Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit – sshiit – sorry – born of the Virgin Mary; suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, then, um,” He’d lost his train of thought. It wasn’t just that wound, but all of the other ones that were being throttled as he tensed for the stitches. “He died, and um, he was buried. He descended into hell; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.” Why was he being such a baby about this? It was good that Stick wasn’t here to laugh at him. “I believe – I b-believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communication – communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the dead – no, ow – body, resurrection of the body, and life everlasting.”

“All done,” the doctor said. “Very good job, Mr. Murdock.”

“Screwed it up.”

“You did just fine,” she said. She had a strong Southern accent. It reminded him what part of Florida he was in. “You have a concussion, a fractured jaw, and your shoulder was popped out of place when the EMTs found you. You were severely sunburned and dehydrated. We’ve given you an anti-inflammatory and the fastest way to get back on your feet is with IV fluids. Now I need to run some routine neurological exams. Do you think you’re up for that?”

“Yes.” He knew what they involved. He knew his name, his birthdate, who was president, all of that. He only missed a few. The ringing in his ears was down and the doctor said his hearing wasn’t damaged, and that helped him settle a little. Exhaustion was doing a lot of the work. A police officer came by to ask about his injuries.

“I fell,” he said. It wasn’t a lie.

“Did you fall because someone pushed you?”

“Concussion ... unreliable witness. Testimony won’t hold up in court,” he mumbled. “Defense will say I was bullied.”

“Do you want me to come back?”

“Not pressing charges,” he said. “Unnecessary report. Save you some time.”

The policeman shifted his weight. “You been in this position before, Mr. Murdock?”

He actually smiled at that. “No. Lawyer. Defense attorney. Not homeless bum.” He still smelled like one, but all of the peroxide was hiding it. “No charges. Not worth your time. Have a good night, officer.”

“I’m going to leave my number on your chart, in case you change your mind.”

“Due diligence,” Matt said. “Good for you.”

The officer left when Matt was resolute about it, but Paul stayed. “What happened?”

“Turning the other cheek is ... not working out so well for me.” He wanted to grin but he was just too tired to continue this conversation.

“Doesn’t seem like it. Are you sure you don’t want to talk to the police officer?”

“Yes.” He nodded, but it hurt. “Want to sleep.”

“Okay.” He patted him on the shoulder. It also hurt, but Matt tried not to show it. “Get some rest.”

“Mmmm.” He sunk into the cot. He could still the redundant sounds of the emergency room: doctors chatting about complex things, monitors beeping, people struggling to breathe – but it faded away, and the pain in his head (which was really not too bad, why was he being such a baby about it?) started to lighten. All he wanted to do was stay that way, forever, even if the sheets were itchy and his gown was itchy and the surgical tape around his IV was going to irritate his skin.

He woke to a metal tinge on his tongue and Stick’s hand on his chest. “You up, kid?”

He mumbled his response. Nothing too coherent, as he wasn’t really trying to say anything. He’d said no to drugs, right?

“You want to get out of here?”

He nodded. It hurt less this time.

“Let’s go. Up and at ‘em.” Stick didn’t help with that part, of course. Matt got himself up and pulled out his IV. Ripping the tape off really, really hurt. His skin was still aflame from the sun. But Stick had brought his cane, which Matt graciously accepted. “They want you to sign some forms.”

Stick had actually talked to the doctors? That didn’t sound like him. He’d never seen Stick interact with anyone he wasn’t training or fighting, but the nurse knew him all the same, and handed Matt a clipboard. “You understand that you’re discharging yourself against doctor’s orders?”

“Yes.”

“The recommended stay was until at least 9 am.”

“What time is it now?”

“Five.”

“Just put your finger where I need to sign,” he said, adding, “Please.”

She put her forefinger over the bottom area of the sheet, which Matt signed. He doubted his signature looked like much of anything. She handed him a bag with paperwork stapled to it. “These are prescriptions filled by the pharmacy for an anti-inflammatory for five days, to be taken with food, and Tylenol with codeine, to be taken as needed. Stay in bed and drink lots of fluids. Keep your head dry. If you faint, or start vomiting, or the headache worsens, you need to return to the hospital. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” He was trying not to be impatient, but it was hard. He wanted to go back to sleep. Stick still hadn’t said anything. He just took off in one direction and expected Matt to follow.

“You don’t know what kind of favors I had to call in for this,” Stick said as they climbed into the waiting car, driven by the owner of the trailer park. The car was cool and air conditioned and despite the scratchy interior Matt was happy to let his head rest and say nothing. He did not pay attention to any conversation that might have happened in the front seats, or much of anything when the door opened and the heat of the outside world blasted in his face.

*******************************

There was an intricate stillness to the world. As he returned to it, he noticed how his head injury was muting things more than he’d realized, even if it was hurting less now. His body was too stiff to move, so he just felt the naked mattress beneath him. It was a twin bed foam mattress, and the only other thing with him was a bottle of water that had rolled into the valley of his weight and pressed gently against his chest. His throat was parched enough for him to work his fingers into opening it and sucking up all of its contents, with some of it spilling because he was still sideways.

There were sounds around him, just nothing that was pressing. It was probably day now, because Matt could hear the sounds of people talking, of cars on the distant road, and the insect noises were different. There were more birds. In the trailer itself there was the hum of the mini-fridge, the gentle creaking of the trailer as it settled further and further into the earth in slow decay imperceptible to most people, and Stick’s heartbeat, which was always steady, even if he was lying, or fighting, or whatever else he did with his time. There was alcohol on his breath, but it was just beer.

Had Stick been watching him sleep? Relatively speaking, of course.

“Shower’s working,” Stick said, as if that was news to Matt somehow. He tossed him another bottle. It was a cold Gatorade. “Don’t let yourself pass out again. Your medication’s on the counter. I think the bigger pills are the sissy painkillers.” He stood and left, cracking open another can of beer as he went.

Matt decided not to question that. It was hard to sit up, let alone shower while wearing a plastic grocery bag over his hair. No matter what the temperature, water irritated his sunburns. He kept it short, then found the pill bottles where Stick said they would be with a glass of water. He took the anti-inflammatory, but not the Tylenol. Or what he hoped was the anti-inflammatory. In fresh clothes and smelling of soap, he felt like himself again. He stepped out of the trailer and found Stick in the lawn chair. The makeshift charcoal grill of tin foil containers and charcoal was lit and he was stirring the coals with his cane.

There was another chair beside him, one that had been stored under the trailer. Matt knew this was as close to an invitation as he would get, so he sat down beside him. Stick was in one of his less chatty moods, but as every conversation Matt had with him had gone poorly so far, he was willing to sit in silence. His older injuries were screaming so he wasn’t interested in new ones.

Another trailer park resident came by and brought burgers, which he grilled over Stick’s charcoal. They shot the breeze a little bit, but there was only one question about Matt’s presence – “Is that your kid?” To which Stick answered with a warning of “Fuck you” and they resumed talking about sports or something. Matt’s attention drifted. The sun was going down at last and he wondered why Stick lived in this terrible state with its terrible weather but he never smelled soaked with sweat.

Matt was wondering if he should broach a conversation, or call Foggy, or meditate, or do anything when their space was invaded by a bunch of drunken kids. Well, kids was a relative term – they were in their early twenties, but they were almost all shirtless, wearing their loose jean shorts at their hips, and carrying forties. This rowdy crowd walked around the park with air of familiarity.

One of them didn’t hesitate to approach Stick. “Hey old man. How’s the view?”

“Fucking great,” Stick replied. “I don’t have to look at you faggots.”

They laughed, but it was an angry, boozy laughter. They were here to pick on Stick, that much was obvious. “You takin’ in strays now? We heard some kinky shit was going on in this trailer. He your bitch?”

Stick stood up, but it wasn’t to defend Matt’s honor. “I tell you what. You fight me – all four of you – and if one of you gets a hit on me, he’s yours for the night.”

Their bodies shuffled with tension as they considered this. The first question was out of confusion. “You may be too drunk to remember, but you’re fuckin’ blind.”

“And I won’t hit back. Though I really should knock you fuckers into place.” He folded up his cane and handed it to Matt. “Just shut the fuck up and watch. I’m not putting on a show for _them_.”

Matt wanted to stop this, but, well, he knew better. So he took the cane. “Watch yourself.”

Stick chuckled to himself and stepped towards the crowd. Matt could smell their hesitation. They were afraid, but not of Stick. Not yet. They weren’t drunk enough to forget about societal conventions and the disabled, after all.

“You sure, man?”

“Yeah I’m fucking sure.” Stick settled into a combat stance. “And hurry it up. I don’t have all night.”

It took them a minute to gather their courage. The first couple swipes were playful, testing the waters of the very odd situation. Stick barely had to move to dodge them. Then there was some strategizing, because they came at him from two sides, then four, but their fists never connected, except occasionally with each other. Stick was spinning in perpetual motion, always able to find the path of least resistance. He moved around -

Like _wind_. He was moving like wind through a forest, or a tightly-packed stack of buildings, making his way _around_ instead of _into_. He was faster but he was also lighter. His stance was looser than it usually was, almost as if his feet were barely touching the ground, prepared to be elsewhere at a moment’s notice. Which he was, and one of the bullies who put his whole body into his punch hit the ground hard, scraping himself on the pavement. “Motherfucker!”

“Yeah, that’s right, I fucked your mom. Who says I didn’t?” Stick easily made his way out of the brawl with the remaining fighters so he was a good distance away. “Now get the fuck out of here.”

They left, but not before throwing some more foul insults his way. He waited until they were long gone to address Matt. “Get up.”

“I’m not going to hit you, Stick.”

“I know that. Just get up.”

Matt rose to his feet. “And you shouldn’t call people faggots.”

“I know. I’m not an idiot,” he replied, but not particularly harshly. “Airbending is the element of freedom. Air can’t be held down. It can always find a way to escape with even the smallest opening. It relies on negative chi, which is for retreating or evading, but can be used offensively.” He added, “Izo is big on it, so I figured that’s what he gave you.”

“I haven’t been able to do it since leaving the Spirit World.”

“You were trained to stay and take a punch. Or at least that’s how your dad fought. Also why he lost most of the time.” Stick was not baiting him, but the potential was there. Matt ignored it. “Endurance is great, but it’s better not to let those fuckers get you in the first place.” He put himself back into stance. “I’m going to make this really easy. Just follow the energy and send it back to me. It’s like passing a football. And don’t topple like a fucking pussy. You’ve been doing that enough.”

Matt copied his stance, which was wider and looser than he was used to. Despite this he fell into old habits, preparing to sustain himself against the blast of air that came from Stick’s direction, and it knocked him back a few steps.

“Don’t stand there and take it. _Bend_ it,” Stick said. “Once I give that energy to you, it’s yours. You can do whatever you want with it.”

Matt forced his shoulders and back to relax. He was having a little trouble concentrating with the stitches biting into his head, but he wasn’t about to admit it. “Okay.”

Stick wound up by spinning around, drawing the air to him and then sent it out to Matt. This time he knew what was coming and he stepped out of the way, but he couldn’t hold it. It wasn’t a physical thing to grab in his hands.

“Better,” Stick said. “If not falling on your ass is better. We’re starting with a low bar here.”

He wanted to say he couldn’t do this air magic thing, that he hadn’t been able to do it since leaving Aokigahara, but he also knew Stick didn’t like excuses, no matter how reasonable. “This isn’t why I came here.”

Stick shrugged. “You’re welcome to leave.”

Matt frowned. “Okay. I’m ready.”

“I doubt it.” But Stick sent him another air blast. He had to circle with his body to do it. Matt tried copying the motion, drawing the energy in and letting it follow him all the way around – and back at Stick, who caught it.

It worked. He was airbending.

It was a lot like catch. Granted the ball was the air around him and he couldn’t actually touch it, but he wouldn’t have been able to see a ball anyway. They passed the wind between them, and he caught their mixed scents on it, increasing and co-mingling with each pass. He was starting to get dizzy and almost missed a turn, and Stick caught the air and dissipated it around him.

“Pretty good,” Stick said. “If you can do that, maybe you can avoid getting hit so much.” He sat back down, and opened a new beer. “That’s enough for tonight. Don’t want you leaping off ledges too soon.” He gestured to the trailer. “Go to bed.”

“Stick, I – “

“And remember to drink,” Stick said as he kicked back, making clear his intention of ending the conversation.

In the trailer there was a text message on his phone from an unidentified number with a Floridian area code. It was Paul, who identified himself and asked Matt if things were okay. Matt was surprised that he could say that they were.

*******************************

Stick was embarrassed by how much he liked touch. Maybe because it was the hardest sense to use. He couldn’t do it at a distance, as much as he thought he could. It had always been the hardest to keep under control. Feeling something in his palm would bring down his walls, and he did not like being exposed. It was the most exploitable of his senses. People had done that before. He didn’t want it to happen again.

So he rarely touched Matt, because Matt was soft and when Stick carded his hand through Matt’s hair, even when it was matted with blood, which was his fault, the voice would say, _We like him, we like him, why can’t we keep him?_

It was a bad idea to listen to your Black Sky. It was demented, its development stuck in a certain, arbitrary place and if you gave it an inch it would take a mile. It didn’t fully understand that it could never escape. It would keep trying. It would expect more input. It would ingratiate itself in you. It had no boundaries, no space it actually inhabited, and very few inhibitions. But it wasn’t a terrible judge of character. His Black Sky did not like very many people. It did not get to know very many people. Usually Stick only touched his enemies. With other Black Skies, it was trickier – it would respond, their Black Skies would respond, but never actually speak to each other. They were just shouting over the dim of the material world. It was better to tune them out entirely, or never give them a chance to speak in the first place.

But that wasn’t what Izo had taught him. Izo and his Black Sky were like twins, coordinated and always working in conjunction, and it gave him tremendous power, but required tremendous control. They were in a healthy relationship, even if one was the master and the other was the slave. There was a time when that was what Stick wanted for himself. Still was sometimes. But at the moment, he just wanted Black Sky to be silent, to not react to Matt’s presence and take the window to force its views on Stick. _We like this one, we’ve always liked this one, why are you denying it?_

Matt hadn’t been like the others. Stick didn’t know why. He didn’t want to think too hard about it. He knew that it was a rare case where he and Black Sky were in total agreement, but one of them had less of a tendency to keep its mouth shut about it.

 _You didn’t want to hurt him, you know you didn’t, you’ve never wanted to hurt him, why did you hurt him?_ Black Sky spoke like a child screaming as he jumped up and down.

“I don’t know,” he said, not loud enough to wake Matt.

_Why do you want to keep him away? We don’t want to keep him away. Why can’t we ever have what we want?_

“It’s not supposed to be that way.” But that was the way it was. “It doesn’t work out for folks like us.”

_I don’t want to believe that, let’s not, it’s not true just because you say so, why can’t we ever be happy? Why do we have to hurt all the time?_

He had a snappier reply, something that Izo said to him years ago, but instead he said, “I don’t know.”

_I don’t want to be this way. Neither of us do. Why does it have to be this way?_

He wanted to say, Shut up, but of course Black Sky knew that already, so he didn’t bother. There was no use lying to it. “I don’t know anymore.” As much as he didn’t want to leave Matt, he needed to. Matt was resting. He sounded so much younger when he was resting, as if he hadn’t aged a day since Stick found him in that negligent orphanage. Stick didn’t want to disturb that, so he went outside, careful to shut the door behind him before he sat down on his front steps and cried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, where did my readers go? Did I scare you off with all that bending stuff?


	13. Missteps

In the morning Matt was starving. He didn’t usually have this kind of appetite, but it been a strange few days. He helped himself to trail mix and bananas he’d bought for Stick that were browning rapidly in the heat, despite the air conditioning running at full blast. He couldn’t check the stitches in the mirror, but he touched the skin around them. It was still raw, but it was healing, with no signs of infection. His sunburn was bearable. And he had a reply from Foggy about what he’d sent the day before, which was good.

Stick was sitting on his tatami mat, facing away from Matt, toward the scroll.

“Do you know what it says?”

“No.”

“Do you want to?” When Stick didn’t reply, Matt continued, “Foggy says he thinks it’s an ink brush painting of a lion turtle. There’s the Japanese kanji for fire under it.”

“Master Izo gave me the scroll before I mastered fire and moved on to air,” Stick said. “He hasn’t been available to update it.” He relaxed his posture and swung his legs around so he was facing Matt. “I bet Izo fed you a lot of horseshit.”

“There was no one to contradict him.” He filled Stick in on what Izo said about Black Sky, and the elements, and the bridge between the spirit and material worlds.

Stick interrupted him by laughing. “So he told you about the Avatar, huh? How we don’t have one?”

“Yeah. I didn’t really understand him.”

Stick was cackling with delight. “He’s not lying but he’s picking his words. That Avatar? He wanted to be it. He’s been trying for hundreds of years to use his Black Sky to do it. He’s mastered all of the elements, but he’s never been able to take the final step. It would change how both of our worlds work, he thinks for the better. But I think he also wants the power it would give him. The Avatar’s the most powerful creature alive, and when it dies, it’s just reborn.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because there used to be Avatars, and some of their spirits can still be reached. My airbending teacher was an Avatar. His version of the story is a little different,” he said. “Master Izo believes that you can’t achieve the Avatar state by having any attachments. You must completely disconnect from anything that might distract you from Enlightenment. Your mind must become a pure realm of concentrated thought that allows the energy of the universe to flow through you. So, Master Izo hid himself in prison and now he meditates under a tree. But he can’t fully disconnect. He has things holding him back. So seventy years ago he thought I might be a good candidate I was different from the other Black Skies. Had a certain talent for things that needed doing.”

Matt blinked. “You disappeared when you were six.”

“I didn’t disappear. Izo-sensei showed up to claim me, and nobody stopped him. My parents were happy to see me go. Who wants a blind kid? What’s he going to be but a burden?” The heartlessness with which Stick said it didn’t surprise Matt, but it was still saying more than he could with his actual words. “This wasn’t back when you could sue someone for not having a braille copy of everything. In Japan, the blind are all masseuses and acupuncture specialists. It’s assumed that we can’t do anything else. It was like that then and it’s pretty much still like that now. But Master Izo had greater plans, and he offered me a way out, so I took it. I don’t regret it.”

What kind of choice could he really have made when he was six? Matt wondered if Stick even remembered that he had _been_ a child. “He wanted you to be the Avatar?”

“And a perfect soldier. And I was pretty damn good, if I don’t say so myself. A real prodigy. But I broke my vows, so he lost interest.”

“Vows?” Stick had never made him take any.

Stick slid past Matt – Matt now understood how he moved so quickly without touching anything – and grabbed a beer from the fridge. “There’s a reason why we’re called the Chaste, kid.”

“Inna.”

“You really did your homework.”

“Natasha helped. She doesn’t know it, but Inna’s daughter was a Black Sky. You took her in.”

“She was already crippled, but no one was going to be able to handle her, if she would even be allowed to live. Master Izo sent me to pick her up and bring her to Japan for training.” He took a long sip. “She’s an amazing fighter. And a good waterbender.”

“And Inna?”

“We got married, settled down, got a house in the suburbs with a bunch of kids. What the fuck do you think happened?”

“I really have no idea.”

“And it’s really none of your G-ddamn business,” he said, putting force into his words, and Matt supposed he was right. “It took Master Izo a long time to forgive me, but I was damn good at my job, so he had to. And then you came along. He thought you were special, too.”

Matt picked his head up.

“He didn’t want to fuck this one up though, so he sent me.” He shrugged. “Another thing I fucked up.”

Matt felt like this was the first time he could really ask, and maybe get an honest answer. “Why did you leave me?”

“That was a long time ago.” In other words, he didn’t want to answer the question. “We’ve both changed.”

“No,” Matt said even more firmly. “We’re stuck in the same place. We can never get out of it.”

“No attachments, Matty. Same for you as it is for me. I could have stayed and trained you to be a good soldier and maybe you even would have fulfilled Master Izo’s destiny for you, but the ending would have been the same. We would both be alone. It was what we needed.”

Matt didn’t miss the slip into present tense. “Do you still believe that?”

“Why did you come here? Tell me why.” Stick was pleading with him. Matt felt bad, taking advantage of his position, but he didn’t know when it would come again.

“To stop you from drinking yourself to death,” Matt said. “I know your life is fucked up and some of it’s your own fault and some of it isn’t. Some of it’s mine. Maybe a lot of it’s mine.”

“No. None of it’s your fault.” Stick was very insistent on his point. “You never got the whole story. We just toyed with you. Master Izo wanted you to be the Avatar. I wanted you to pull yourself out of that hole because no one was going to do it for you, and you had to learn that. But you found a better way without me.”

Matt didn’t know if that was true, precisely. He couldn’t say what his life would be like if he’d never met Stick. Or if Stick had continued his training. “Do you want me to leave?” Stick always spoke so plainly, but never really said what was important.

Stick’s posture slumped. He put aside the beer and took Matt’s hand. “Never, _ever_ let anyone do this to you.” Then he pressed it against his own chest, in the direct center, next to his heart. Matt could feel his heartbeat rather than hear it, but that wasn’t the primary thing he was feeling. It was beneath the surface, like a fish swimming around beneath a layer of ice, or a trapped animal, and he knew he was in contact with – if not directly touching – Stick’s Black Sky.

It was a bundle of emotions, just as his head been. It was trying to talk. It was shouting, maybe, but the words weren’t comprehensible. He felt its emotions – loneliness, fear of rejection, love. Stick was in there, too. There was no clear place where Stick ended and his Black Sky began. Matt wasn’t getting Stick’s memories, but he was getting the emotions from the memories, as if he’d watched a movie and forgotten what actually happened in it but remembered how it made him feel. This Black Sky was wounded like all of them, bottled up, but it had been alone a long time. People had rejected Stick and Stick had rejected them right back, and Black Sky had been there with him. Stick felt used up, but Black Sky wanted a new life. Black Sky still had hope.

Black Sky _loved_ Matt.

It was not on a human level, one he could put into a category the way humans related to each other. But Stick’s Black Sky was desperately attached to him. He _never_ wanted him to leave. Stick’s emotions were tied up in it, and he was showing Matt because he had no way to say it himself.

Matt was the one who couldn’t maintain the connection. He had to pull away, leaving only an awkward silence between two probably normal looking, blind human beings who were staring at each other but would never see each other. Matt couldn’t speak – the room was too charged with emotion. The now-severed connection had been too intimate. Necessary, but it put him close to Stick in a way he hadn’t thought was possible.

“Did I answer your question?” Stick sounded disoriented. Lost. Had it hurt? Had he been able to sense what Matt was feeling, or was it only one way?

Matt decided to make it easy. He wouldn’t make him say anything else. Not right now, when Stick was raw. “Yeah.”

*******************************

They stayed out of each other’s way after that. It was hard to do in a tiny trailer but they managed. Everything was too tender for physical contact. Matt couldn’t describe how it made him feel, and he didn’t want to. Stick had given him exactly what he wanted, but it didn’t complete any story. They were still two profoundly fucked up people who didn’t know how to go forward with their lives. There were was just too much scar tissue.

They sat on the roof of the trailer – Stick could airbend himself up there, but he had to give Matt a hand – and drank, feeling what was theoretically a sunset on their faces. Neither of them said anything. If Stick wanted quiet, he would get it. Matt his own feelings to sort through.

The next day was Sunday, and since he couldn’t find a Mass in the area, Matt showed up at First Baptist. Services were ... different. More people being loud, less ritual and incense. He missed the peace that familiar sounds and scents brought him. The building was wooden instead of stone. It did not speak of age but of spontaneity and a young, enthusiastic crowd. But it had wooden pews, and he would settle for that. He sat in the back, not directly participating, but letting the spell of the service blanket him as he pushed his other concerns out of his mind, or at least tried to.

The pastor approached him after services. “How are you?”

“Better.” He unconsciously scratched his head. “We worked some things out.”

“You look better.” Meaning, he wasn’t in the hospital, covered in sunburns and bleeding from a cracked skull. “It’s nice to see you. Anything inspiring about the service?”

“I’m not going to lie to you,” Matt said. “It’s not really my thing.”

“But you came anyway.”

Matt shrugged. “It’s Sunday. The Lord’s day.” He refolded the weekly announcements pamphlet. He couldn’t read it anyway; he just took it when he entered to have something to do with his hands. “I’m not entirely sure what happened at the hospital, but thank you for coming.”

“They said you signed yourself out. And you need to have your stitches removed in a week.”

“I’ll make an appointment in New York. This has just been a friendly visit.”

“I know I shouldn’t pry, but the man you’re visiting – “

“Some people aren’t very good at expressing their feelings,” Matt said. He did not want to have this conversation with anyone, much less a man barely more than a stranger to him. “It comes out wrong. You have to have the patience to get past all that.”

“It seems like it cost you a lot more than patience.”

“Yeah.” Matt smiled. “But it was worth it.”

*******************************

Matt’s real life – as real as it could be, with everything that was going on – came hurtling back to him in the form of a scrappy mutt named Bowser. He was barely more than a puppy but he had a lot of bark for his size, and he was newly adopted by the trailer in lot 2C, preciously close to Stick’s. Matt pretended that nothing was wrong as he walked across the park, clamping down any desire to flee, and just hoping breathing wouldn’t be necessary for a while. When he reached Stick’s front steps, he was unable to climb them. His sense of geography had vanished because he was overfocused and heard nothing but his own heartbeat. Oh, and Stick laughing.

“You’ve got a demon inside you and you’re afraid of _dogs?_ ”

Whatever response Matt had to that died in his throat. He couldn’t force it up the tightened opening. He had pills, but they weren’t on his person, and he wasn’t going to ask Stick to fetch them for him. They weren’t fast-acting anyway. Pills weren’t a sign of weakness, but Stick wouldn’t understand that, and he didn’t want to be lectured.

“Jesus Christ,” Stick said as Matt stayed down, unable to get his bearings despite being more than somewhat familiar with the wooden steps up to the trailer. Matt could feel the liquor on Stick’s breath; he was crouching next to him. “You don’t need air. You need courage.”

That did help, or seemed like it helped, because anxiety just brought about the illusion that he was choking to death or couldn’t breathe. Nothing was actually constricted. He closed his eyes and tried for deeper and deeper breaths. Like with every other attack, it took time. When he could lift himself up again, Stick had moved to inside the trailer and switched to vodka. Matt forced himself to stand, even if he had to hold on to the paneling to do it. The sweat was drying on his back and making his shirt stick to him, and the air conditioner’s cold wind was giving him chills. “Why didn’t you rescue me?”

“I tried. You know that.”

“You could – you could have done it yourself.”

“No, Matty. I wanted to. I really did. But it wouldn’t have ended well. I would have hesitated and you would have killed me. Do you want that?”

There were times when he wished Stick dead, but this was different. “You were willing to give up your own people.”

“They weren’t emotionally compromised and they were trained to expect the worst. They were told to do anything in their power but kill you. That’s what a leader does. He delegates.”

But Stick hadn’t been a good leader. The Chaste had got frustrated with him sending in fighter after fighter (at least two Matt knew of) and they had kicked him out. Matt wanted to be angry all over again for Stick’s shitty planning, but remembered that he’d forgiven him for it, and he wasn’t planning on backtracking on that. It wouldn’t help him anymore to be angry at Stick. “I’m not afraid of the dog.”

“I know what they did to you.” Though he didn’t describe how he knew, and frankly, Matt didn’t want to know. “You were never going to cross that line of your own power. It seemed like a choice, but it wasn’t. But you will be forced into making those choices again, and you can’t just fall over and expect them to wait for you to do your breathing exercises.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Well did you ever think you were just going to be a guy with a desk job and a suit and tie? You kept up your training all of those years, didn’t you?”

“I – “ No, he didn’t have a good response to that, because it was too true. “I don’t know what I want anymore.” He just knew what he _didn’t_ want, and that was to be a killer.

“I can help you, but you won’t like it,” Stick said. “It won’t be fun.”

“When is it ever?”

“I’m not fucking kidding this time, Matty. You want to be the man you were before? Because you can never go back to that. You want to sit in your fancy apartment and drown in self-pity? No one’s going to blame you for it. You came here for the third option. But you have to want it.”

Matt bit his lip. He was afraid. Stick was not fucking around with him. But he was also offering something only he could give him. “I don’t want to be afraid of myself anymore.”

“Well,” Stick said, “that’s a start.”


	14. The Dead Man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings for torture and references to abuse.

Matt smelled chloroform on his lips and spread around his nose. It was the first thing that hit him when he drew a breath. The second was the heavy, humid air, particularly stuffy, flowing in the cramped space around him. It was hot outside – boiling – but he was inside, or at least not in the sun, in a very cramped space.

When he raised his hands to push away the blanket he hit wood. Solid, unfinished pine, and it didn’t give way. He felt its roughness on the back of his head, too, and he hit his forehead as he tried to sit up. There was nowhere to go. There was no direction to spread his limbs. He was in a box. Like a coffin.

In fact, he was pretty sure he was in an _actual_ coffin. He’d never been in one before but it had that distinctive shape. Other than quarter-sized holes punched into the lid, there were no avenues of escape. When he pressed against the walls he could smell the iron tang of the nails.

He was nailed in a _fucking_ _coffin_.

Every part of him that could panic promptly did so. There wasn’t enough air – he was sure there was air, there were holes for air, that meant he wasn’t supposed to suffocate, but he couldn’t get any of the air into his lungs, and what the fuck was that, he was an _airbender_. He pounded on the lid until his hands were full of splinters and bleeding. He bruised both his knees. His head wound was particularly raw after a few knocks against the bottom of the board. He did eventually find some plastic water bottles in the extra spaces between his limbs, so he wouldn’t die of thirst either, at least not at once, but he couldn’t unscrew the caps because his hands were shaking too hard. He wanted water. He wanted air. He wanted _out_.

He tried to scream. It came out in embarrassing gasps, not nearly loud enough, but his throat was already too dry and it hurt. He screamed himself dizzy.

“Shut the fuck up!” Stick said. Stick was nearby. Maybe five feet away. Drinking vodka straight from the bottle again. “Some of us are trying to sleep.”

Stick might have warned him about something, Matt remembered, but he couldn’t hold his thoughts together long enough to remember it entirely. “Stick! Help me!”

“You’re too good for my help. Don’t you remember that?” Stick kicked the side of the coffin. “You wanted to help me. Do I sound like I need help?” He sounded like he was enjoying himself, actually.

Matt screamed as loud as he could. If Stick wouldn’t help him, someone else would. Even if he couldn’t hear any other heartbeats nearby. Shit, Stick had probably thought this out.

“I could bring that mutt by,” Stick said. “Maybe she could chew her way through.”

Taunting. This was the old Stick he knew, and Matt belatedly remembered that he hated this Stick. “D-Don’t.” He still couldn’t breathe properly. In and out was just too hard. It made his words nearly impossible to understand. “Please.” He gasped. “D-Don’t leave me alone.”

Stick laughed and put a foot up on the coffin. Matt could smell the vodka through the air holes. “You? You’re _never_ alone. Even if you want to be. There’s two of you in there. It’s not my problem if you can’t get your collective shits together.”

Right. The demon inside of him. The one he had spent almost all of his life not even knowing about. Matt couldn’t speak. He just wheezed.

“Don’t suffocate in there,” Stick warned. “You’ll start to smell.” He tossed the empty liquor bottle on the ground next to him, where it shattered as he walked off. “And keep the noise down! Some of us have things to do.”

But Stick didn’t have things to do. Stick would sit around and drink and shoot the breeze with the neighbors who weren’t scared of him and do whatever it was that kept him entertained in his crummy trailer. Stick would probably sleep like a baby while Matt died from lack of oxygen. He could figure out he wouldn’t actually die of that, but it didn’t feel that way in his chest. His heart was racing too fast for him to follow it. His hands were throbbing, his head wound was throbbing, his knees were throbbing, and his body was trying to escape its own skin.

He remembered ... he remembered a lot of things he didn’t want to remember. He remembered the aftertaste of tranquilizers. Not these tiny little pills the psychiatrist gave him – the real stuff, what they used to knock him out before transporting him. He remembered them wearing off, and getting antsy, and the itch beneath his skin, and how he would be so happy just to be _free_ of that space and the feelings that made it hard to sit still even when there was nowhere to properly sit. The voice would tell him “ _Stay_ ” and he would do it while someone gave him shots to lift him up again, so he was pumped full of infectious energy and he was convinced he could go anywhere and do anything. He wasn’t a neat killer. He smashed people and things, whatever got in his way, and it felt fantastic. He never wanted it to end. He could not imagine the distant future, just _now, now, now,_ and there was so much now, and then he would go back in the box because he did what the voice told him and it would start all over again.

The good thing about being an animal is an animal doesn’t have to think too hard. Now Matt was stuck in that box and he couldn’t silence his thoughts, even though they were causing him more trouble than his actual physical predicament. He imagined everything except what would be helpful. He imagined the smell of blood and the taste in the air when someone screamed, and the strange, empty feeling when their heart stopped. He remembered the cage he was in when he wasn’t killing, and it made him wish to be anywhere else, and happy when he was somewhere else, where he could run free, even if it meant he had to do things he did not then comprehend as terrible anymore. Everything was easy when he wasn’t troubled by complex thinking. He remembered being in hell, and thinking about death, before his mind was shut down by drugs and pain. He remembered thinking later that he didn’t want to remember any of this. He thought he would be able to move on with his life, but he was right back where he started, and he wasn’t strong enough to get himself out this time either.

The loudest sound now was his own strangled breath, as air made its way through constricted passages that were raw from screaming. He wanted it to slow down but he couldn’t slow it down himself. He needed something to hold on to – _anything_ else to hold on to – so he could focus. He felt his own trembling. He felt his own fear. He was scared and alone.

No, Stick told him he wasn’t alone. Black Sky was scared right along with him. He might get out of this coffin eventually, but Black Sky would never be free. Black Sky had no future, only the past when he was crippled and the present, when he was scared, too. Matt wasn’t sure if he was feeling it or just projecting. He didn’t _feel_ any different. He just knew more about it now.

He was not alone. He would _never_ be alone. He just ... didn’t know anything about the spirit he was with. That seemed stupid of him.

“Do you even ... do you h-have a name?” he asked. There were no nearby heartbeats to indicate people that would overhear him except for Stick, who was some distance away, but Matt’s voice sounded like it had been dragged across fiery coals (and felt that way, too), so he doubted anyone could hear him anyway. “Is t-this – stupid?” He was still gasping for air so hard it shook the coffin but he managed to squeeze out a few words. “Can you ... even hear me?” He focused on listening, but was only rewarded with silence from Black Sky, if he could even communicate with it. He tried to make his breathing soft. “Am I s-supposed to talk to you?” Stick had called it the Bringer of Shadows and implied it was something Matt didn’t want ‘in his world.’ Sota called it a demon. Izo tried to correct this understanding, but Izo was hiding a lot, too, if Stick was telling the truth.

Matt was willing to bet Stick was telling the truth. He was cruel like that. But Stick was in some kind of contact with his own Black Sky. Too many of their thoughts and emotions crossed over.

_When I was scared, were you scared?_ he thought to himself. Trying to talk was costing him too much energy. _If I had died, what would have happened to you? It wouldn’t have been fair. You shouldn’t suffer because of my mistakes._ He remembered the light of all the Black Skies Izo said he had ‘failed’ hovering above the World Tree. He could have been one of them, if he hadn’t run out in front of that truck to save an old man. Or maybe Izo would have found another way to do it. But it didn’t seem like a proper existence.

“I’m sorry,” Matt managed to croak out. “I didn’t take care of you. I did – I didn’t think about you.” He didn’t want to die now to find out what could have been. He wouldn’t become part of Izo’s hovering flock of lost souls. And he wouldn’t let his Black Sky become part of it either. “I-I’m sorry I wanted to die.”

Only crickets answered him with the fury of a warm, restless night. Matt rested his head against the wood in a position that didn’t quite hurt his head as much and listened. The heat and humidity outside was filling his lungs, and he realized he was breathing normally again. He wasn’t calm, but he could manage. He fumbled for the water bottles and drank two of them. They were warm but they were wet and for a time, that was enough for him.

“Stick!” he shouted. “I’m ready to come out now!” He wanted to say, _I’ve crushed all of my insecurities_ but that was a stretch. Mostly he was tired and overheated. He also wasn’t strong enough to free himself. The nails were in too deep. “Stick, if you can hear me, which I know you can, you’re a real motherfucker.”

It wouldn’t be news to Stick.

*******************************

Matt wasn’t sure if he fell asleep from exhaustion or passed out from the heat. Either way he woke very thirsty, and guzzled the rest of his water. In this weather he needed more than that. He needed, at the very least, some electrolytes or he would continue to get weaker, and he wasn’t strong enough to push the lid off the coffin now. He felt the panic rising in him again. He didn’t know how he had the strength to go into a panic attack, but apparently his body was willing.

“Perfect love, cast out fear,” he said. It came from something in the back of his brain and he was surprised that he’d chosen now to remember it. It was something the nuns said to say when he was scared, but it never worked. He was always scared, at least until Stick showed up. Stick didn’t drive out fear; he just had no patience for it. And Matt still didn’t understand what perfect love was. Something about fear being selfish – that was all he remembered now. It had been too complex a concept for a ten-year-old grieving for his father.

He had been so alone then, or he’d _felt_ so alone - but he’d never _been_ alone, he corrected. Even if he couldn’t communicate with Black Sky (except in one direction), he knew it was there. He didn’t want it to be scared. He didn’t want to be scared himself.

Matt drifted, unable to tell if he was sleeping or awake. Either way he was hot and tired. He tried to meditate, but could never separate himself from what his body was feeling. He could feel the sun through the holes in the lid, but couldn’t get a sense of where it was in the sky. He was pretty sure Stick wouldn’t leave him to die, but Stick had a habit of passing out drunk, so Matt supposed it could happen accidentally.

Stick hadn’t forgotten him, it turned out, and he brought a friend. The yappy little dog – probably a little terrier – was with Stick when he returned, and he set the dog down on the coffin, inches from Matt’s face. It barked appreciatively when Stick petted it. Matt could hear the dog’s heart. He could hear the contented sighs of pleasure at being touched by human hands.

“Perfect love, cast out fear,” he repeated, in an undertone, despite knowing that Stick could hear him. His mind raced to all of the bad places it could take itself and he squirmed, but held himself back enough to keep from thrashing against the walls of the box. _I don’t have to hurt this dog. It doesn’t have to die_. _I’m not going to let it die._ He gasped as his chest tightened. _We’re not going to let it die_. _We’re stronger than that_.

_We’re stronger we’re stronger we’re stronger_ –

_We’re stronger than this. We’re stronger than the monster._ And he didn’t mean Black Sky. _Perfect love, cast out fear_. He couldn’t say the words because he couldn’t get them out while he was choking, but he could _think_ them. He wasn’t alone, and he didn’t have to be afraid. The nuns had taught him to fear only G-d, and G-d had a perfect love of him. Like the love he felt from Stick’s Black Sky, times a million. He tried to imagine it.

_Perfect love, cast out fear_. He ignored his breathing. He couldn’t steady it with counting backwards or pacing it. What would happen would happen, and he would still be there, and he wouldn’t be alone in surviving. And he _had_ to survive, not for his own sake, but for the sake of both of them. For Stick’s sake. For the sake of Foggy, of Claire, of everyone who cared about him, even loved him. He had a responsibility to them, and that translated to not letting himself die in a coffin in Florida because his instincts told him to be scared of himself. If he couldn’t be strong for himself, he could be strong for other people. He could be strong for Black Sky.

“Perfect love, cast out fear,” he gasped. It took a few tries to get the whole sentence done. _I don’t have to be afraid. I’m not going to hurt this dog. I’m not going to hurt anyone. I’m going to survive this_.

The dog was gone. It hadn’t vanished, but when the menace of its presence left him like a ghost floating away, its haunting finished, Stick picked it up and left. Matt sighed. He was still stiff and sore. He hadn’t prevented the panic attack entirely, but only embers of it remained.

But Matt knew he was getting weaker, and turned his attention to escape. His hands were still shaking when he felt around the box as far as he could manage, looking for weak spots. The wood wasn’t particularly thick or well-made, but he couldn’t punch through it. There were air holes not just on the lid but on all four sides.

Air. He was an airbender. Air was energy to him, and he was supposed to make that energy work for him – or something. Stick had been vague. Izo too, just much more so.

Matt softened his breath and paid attention to the air currents in the coffin. It was stuffy but holes on all sides meant that it was moving. It was too hot for a breeze but wind was more subtle than that. Feeling around, he wondered if the holes were more strategic than he’d thought. He drew a deep breath, sucking in as much air as he could stuff in his lungs, and blew on the lid. It was still air, but it had a much stronger impact than he’d imagined it would. But the lid was still nailed down. If his hands couldn’t do much against it, what could air do?

He realized he was working against gravity. Maybe he could tip the coffin? If he managed to overturn it entirely, he still wouldn’t suffocate because of the holes on the sides, and the wood might splinter. It didn’t seem overly heavy. If he could move it ...

Matt took another deep breath, this time with more concentration as he imagined himself breathing in pure energy, and tilted his head back so when he exhaled, this breath went through the hole on the side above his head. The coffin didn’t turn, but it shifted a few inches in the opposite direction. He was probably in the swamp, he realized. The ground beneath the coffin was probably slick. _Perfect love, cast out fear_. This time, it was fear that this wasn’t a really stupid idea, but he gave it another try, in the same direction, and the coffin slid forward on the wet grass beneath it. He continued to push, inch by inch, until his lungs were screaming and he was exhausted, but eventually the coffin found a place where the ground sloped, and it slid down into the mud, leaving Matt lying inside at a slight angle, feet facing the ground. The holes on the bottom of the coffin, behind his head, were now exposed. He wiggled himself around until he had flipped over entirely, facing those holes, and took another massive breath.

It was enough to tilt the coffin and push it further into the ditch, sending it forward into the marsh, where it struck a rock. The force of it nearly knocked him out, but the wood finally broke. It wasn’t a solid piece of wood, and when the boards splintered, he could push himself free.

Hot, wet, and still somehow shivering, he pushed off the remains of the coffin and stood up. He could feel everything around him. The air gave him a good sense of his surroundings. After working so long with micro currents in a confined space, air was now free and flowing everywhere around him, and he had never been more aware of it in his life.

He wasn’t far from the trailer park. It had no fence in this part of the park, and he stumbled through it, staggering across the pavement in the direction of Stick’s heartbeat. The chair next to Stick was open, and a cooler was between them. Matt nearly kicked over the cooler in a frenzy and shoved his hands into the ice, stifling a scream from the shock of it before putting it on his head and wetting his neck. He reached around and found a beer – a bad idea, medically speaking – but it was Bud light, so it was mostly water anyway. He cracked it open with uncertain, tired fingers and settled into the chair beside Stick, who was sitting there as calmly as anyone wiling away their hours in redneck-y contemplation.

They didn’t speak. Matt was aware of the way he smelled, and couldn’t begin to imagine how he looked. His knuckles were still bleeding from his early escape attempts. In a few minutes, he would go into the trailer and slather them with Neosporin, but that could wait. The world could wait for him; Stick obviously could.

After unwisely downing two oversized cans of cheap beer, Matt said, “I hate you.”

Stick laughed. “But you hang around anyway.”

Matt didn’t ask questions about how he’d done in the masochistic test and Stick didn’t ask how Matt was feeling, even though he must have smelled the blood and heard the stilted way Matt walked with his injuries. This level of communication they did not need.

They understood each other just fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr user [temple-secrets](http://temple-secrets.tumblr.com/) did some fanart of [Matt and and Stick airbending](http://devilofmidtownwest.tumblr.com/post/131932861329/bridge-between-worlds-preview) on commission. A scene from Legend of Korra is provided for reference.


	15. Gift of the Lion Turtle

The next morning Matt found Stick meditating on his mat, hands pushed into fists with the knuckles touching each other. Stick did not respond to outside stimuli, even Matt dumping water on his head, but his heartrate was slow and steady, so Matt left him alone, not knowing what else to do, and went for another supply run. It was good to get out and use his legs. He bought more gauze and band-aids for his fingers. And booze for Stick.

When he returned, Stick was back in his lawn chair, and held his hand out for the beer Matt had just bought. He finished half of it before he would say anything. “When you’re in the Spirit World, your body is completely vulnerable. You can’t tell what’s happening to it. You need to find a safe place.”

“Is that why Izo’s in prison?” He remembered that Izo said he meditated into the Spirit World instead of using the portal. It was how the Chaste communicated with each other.

“Got himself locked up somewhere the Hand couldn’t get to him,” Stick replied. “He’s not really the prisoner. The guards take care of his body.”

“Did you talk to him?”

Stick finished his beer. “You need to stay in contact with the Spirit World. It will provide you with an airbending master to teach you. He’s a little shit, but who isn’t? Find a spiritual place and meditate.” As usual, he didn’t provide too much guidance on how to do the impossible. “I have to go.”

“Where?” So he had spoken to Izo.

“Saudi Arabia.” He stood, stretching elaborately as he did so. “The Hand is looking for a Black Sky to bring to New York. They tried once and they’ll try again. I’m not entirely sure why yet but I have my suspicions. They’ll stay away from you as long as you stay away from them. Might want to keep it that way for the time being.”

“Are you going to be okay?”

“What kind of stupid question is that?” But there wasn’t any real anger behind it. Matt guessed that Stick was smiling. “You wouldn’t like it. You’re already a mess in the heat.”

“Where will you go, after that?”

“You know, in a different time, when airbenders were a regular thing that existed, they were nomads. Just moved between a couple temples. Never stayed in once place too long. They couldn’t fly, but they had gliders and all kinds of flying animals.”

“Yeah, I saw them in the Spirit World,” Matt said. “My point is, the offer is still open. If you need some place to stay. Somewhere that’s not hot and swampy.”

“I don’t need your charity.” But it was toothless, compared to the way Stick usually said things. “This beer is shitty.”

“You’re drinking it anyway.”

“I know. Give me another one.”

“Stick, I – “

“Don’t turn into a Hallmark card. Just sit and drink with me, G-ddamn it. I’m going to a dry country. I have to work myself up for it.”

Matt smiled. “Okay.”

*******************************

By evening, Stick was gone. He left behind spare keys to lock up and no other instructions. Matt cleaned out the fridge, packed up the trailer, and gave the key to the park owner. He didn’t have an explanation but nobody asked for one.

“John’s a bit of a weirdo,” the owner said. “Never had someone visit him before.”

“Yeah, I figured that.”

Matt didn’t linger. He had a changeable ticket. He didn’t call Foggy ahead. This particular journey he braved himself, even if it meant shuttles and trains back to Penn Station and the smelly but delightfully cool subway. He put on his good clothes for Mass, and after that went downtown to the courthouse, where he took a seat in the back row of a small courtroom.

Foggy was defending a young man who had been arrested for possession of ecstasy. He was guilty – that wasn’t disputed – but the search and seizure had been illegal. The cops practically broke into the apartment, almost taking the door off its hinges in the process, on the premise that they could smell (it had no smell) and see the drugs (which were hidden). A felony would find the defendant in jail and deprived of his right to vote, and a lesser lawyer would have had him plead out. Foggy wasn’t making any friends with the NYPD, but he knew what constituted suspicious activity and he wasn’t about to let two bully cops and a prosecutor trying to preserve his conviction record abuse the system. He had an immense capacity for storage of case law in his brain, and he could cite things the _judge_ was unfamiliar with but which still took place in the five boroughs. The case was dismantled in an hour and charges were dropped.

“Matt!” He’d specifically not told Foggy of his plans. Foggy embraced him, which was painful. “I didn’t know you were back! You should have called.”

“I don’t _always_ need you to micromanage my life,” he replied with a genuine smile. This was his first time back in court in over two years, even if it was just as a spectator. “Plus people like giving me directions. They feel like it’s their good deed for the day.”

“You look like shit, Matt,” Foggy said, even though Matt had showered and shaved and was wearing a suit. “You remember there’s a sun, right? It does funny things to human skin? Other people use it to help them get around during the day?” He stepped back and took another look. “I take it you found Stick.”

“Well, I didn’t get in fights with random people,” Matt said. “It went better than I thought it would.”

“I was worried about you. Because, you know, I’m a reasonable person who knows you.” He offered his elbow and they walked out of the courthouse. “I also thought you might not make it home for Christmas.”

Matt frowned. He’d spent every Christmas he’d known Foggy at the Nelsons, but he hadn’t made the assumption he was still invited. “I thought you would take Marci.”

“Nah, Casa de Nelson is way too ... Christmas-y for her. This is the time of year when she goes with her family to someplace with a beach and a pool that has one of those swim-up bars. She might come home as sunburned as you are, if that’s possible.” He paused at the corner. The cold breeze was delightful to Matt, but made Foggy shiver. “I want to hear about your trip, but I actually have dinner planned with Marci and – “

“It’s fine. You don’t have to babysit me.”

“I wasn’t – “

“He was,” Marci interrupted as she stepped out of the cab that had pulled up next to them. Everything on her, with all her winter layers, sounded or smelled expensive. “You looked like a baked potato, Murdock.”

“Happy Holidays, Marci.”

“My dinky little festival was a week ago, but nice try.” She took Foggy’s other arm. “I’m not going to get in a custody battle with you tonight.”

“People fighting over me is a lot less fun than it sounds in my head,” Foggy admitted with a sigh.

*******************************

“I hate being a third wheel,” Matt said as he tried not to flinch from the pain as Claire worked on his stitches.

“And I thought I was done with this,” she said, pausing to hold his head steady with her gloved hands. “Breathe.”

“I’m breathing.”

“You’re holding it.” She was never wrong about these sorts of things. “I can’t say I know Foggy very well, but he’s more obsessed with worrying about you than you worry about him.”

“Hmm. I do seem to attract that sort of person.”

“Can’t imagine how.” Claire grabbed a fresh wipe for the exposed patch of skull, which only showed (according to her) when his hair was pushed back. “Please tell me you didn’t get this fighting.”

“I fought the pavement and the pavement won.” He added after she gave him the silent treatment, “I wasn’t fighting back.”

“I want to say that explains a lot, but let’s be honest – it doesn’t sound like you.”

“It’s the truth. I’m not the person I used to be.”

“People who don’t want to fight don’t get into fights, Matt.”

They hadn’t discussed Daredevil. It hadn’t come up for the most part, and had been assiduously avoided otherwise. “It’s complicated.”

“It always is.” Claire pulled the last stitch and put gauze over the wound. “Hold this.” Matt did as he was told until she taped it down with a bandage. “You can shower, but be gentle with your head and the shower spray. How did you get talked into a hospital? Wait, forget it, I don’t want to know.”

“Yeah, it was a head wound,” he admitted. “Plus it was Florida, so you spend any amount of time lying on the ground outside and you’re going to get dehydrated.” Matt added, “I’m not planning on ever going back, if that helps.”

“I think if you just stick to Disney World next time you’ll do better,” she said. “Why do you get to travel the world and I get stuck sitting in a dusty apartment waiting to patch you up when you get back?”

“Am I intruding?” It was a semi-legitimate question. He was conscientious about taking up her time, particularly her medical time, because he didn’t like going to a doctor’s office or because he didn’t like the way his apartment smelled. Or waking up alone, but he didn’t say that.

“Sometimes it seems like you are my social life, so I would say no,” she admitted as she packed up her supplies. “You know, when you were – gone, I was living in Brooklyn, and I thought I would have this wild life on the town, like when I was a teenager. But I just came home from every shift and went to sleep. What does that say about me?”

“You value your beauty sleep?”

“How can you tell?”

He grinned. “I’m told it’s like a superpower.”

*******************************

Confession with Father Lantom took a long time.

It wasn’t a confession, per se, though it wasn’t as if Matt hadn’t done the usual sins of lying and cursing and missing church. But he hadn’t actually _worshipped_ any spirits or non-Judeo-Christian gods, just spoken with them, and that was a big distinction. He shortened some of it – Lantom didn’t need to know about airbending, or the White Lotus, or that Matt hadn’t correctly recited the Apostle’s Creed while having his head stitched back to together.

“How do you feel now?” the priest asked at the end of it, because that was what he was concerned about.

“I need to get back to my life,” Matt said. “I know it’s not straightforward as that, but the things I’ve been avoiding – I can’t avoid them anymore. Foggy needs me at work. The city needs me – well, I’m not sure about what to do about it.” He unconsciously rubbed his stomach. “Is it bad that I know there’s a spirit inside of me and I don’t want it out?”

“You said the process would kill you,” Lantom said rather diplomatically. “Some people do die in exorcisms. That’s why I’ve never performed one.”

“You get a lot of calls for that, Father?”

Lantom was not so easily cornered. “Only from people who don’t know much about priests or Catholicism. I did see an exorcism once. In Africa. Not a church rite.” He added, “The patient died.”

“Patient?”

“She had other issues,” he admitted, and Matt knew not to push him further. “You’ll tell me before you do anything stupid, will you?”

“Why start now?”

*******************************

Christmas at the Nelsons was easier than he thought it would be. In was familiar. Normal, even. Almost like no time had passed since his last visit, a lifetime ago.

The invitations had started in law school, though he’d only taken Foggy up on it because his roommate was so insistent. Foggy’s family was big and normal – two parents, four younger sisters, and lots and lots of cousins. They had moved from Hell’s Kitchen to the Far Rockaways when he was in college, so they had a lawn and a garage and all of these strange things Matt wasn’t used to. Not all of the Nelson clan’s homes had escaped Hurricane Sandy, but none were completely destroyed. Matt had once spent an entire Christmas break helping Foggy clean out the water-damaged basement. Everyone loved Matt (everyone said they loved Matt, and they weren’t lying far as he could tell), but there were times when it got too much, and there were too many people in a small space showering him with attention, and they were understanding about that, too. They were culturally Christian (he was pretty sure they were Episcopalian), but Matt was the only one who went to the local church for Midnight Mass, driven by whoever wasn’t too drunk to drive at that hour. This year, it was Candace, Foggy’s oldest sister, who had dyed her hair again (Foggy said it was neon blue) just in time for the holiday but was slowly growing out of her wilder rebellious stage now that she was in her mid-twenties. There was a sizable age gap between Foggy and his sisters, two of whom were still in high school.

“What do you think of Marci?” she asked as they climbed into the car. Foggy had offered but he was currently passed out on the couch beside his father, the television still tuned to _It’s a Wonderful Life_.

“Foggy likes her, and that’s what’s important,” he said evasively. Candace had a tendency to corner him with questions like this. She would pin him down eventually.

Candace said, “So you don’t like her.”

“She’s changed.” He frowned, wondering if that was accurate. “She’s different from the person I knew in law school.”

“How so?”

“Can’t put my finger on it.” He didn’t know Marci that well. He just knew she stuck it out with Foggy, who couldn’t have been the easiest person to be with in the past few years, when no one else had. And she was willing to put up with Matt’s constant presence in Foggy’s life, which was really saying something. “If I thought she was bad for him, I would say something.”

“You’d better,” was all she said to that.

*******************************

He returned to his apartment in time for New Year’s to find Stick on his couch, surrounded by Matt’s entire alcohol collection spread out on his floor in the form of empty containers.

“What the hell?” Foggy said, while Matt was merely amused, and set his bag down softly as to not disturb Stick’s snoring. “Did you give him a key?”

“I didn’t think the lock was going to stop him,” Matt replied in a hushed undertone.

“He’s not – “ Foggy did lower his voice. “You guys ended on good terms, right? I can come by tomorrow and stuff won’t be broken?”

“Yeah,” Matt said. “And if you want to be a real friend, bring some more beer.”

“I thought I _was_ a real friend.”

“And vodka.” He was messing with Foggy and Foggy knew that but he probably would bring something, or Matt would have to run out to buy an offering to appease the angry god and his mighty hangovers. Actually, no, Matt had never seen Stick hungover, or even acting that drunk. Maybe alcohol was just like Nyquil to him.

Matt put a blanket over his former teacher that he was sure Stick would hate for not being itchy enough. He would get hell for it in the morning. “Good night, Stick.”

As he went into his bedroom he was almost sure he heard a mumbled, “Good night, you little shit,” from the other side of the door.

*******************************

“So? How is everything?” Foggy was all-too-inquisitive as he pushed the shopping cart slowly enough that Matt could hold onto it. It was their pre-New Year’s run, because restaurants overcharged and Foggy wanted to pre-game his evening with Marci. Matt was never much of a New Year’s person, particularly in New York, where he lived close enough to hear the rabble at Times Square and smell the vomit without having to leave his apartment, and he couldn’t fully appreciate the ball drop, especially because he hadn’t been allowed to stay up to see it as a kid. But he needed supplies too, in case Stick was staying.

“Fine.” They hadn’t spoken two words to each other in as many days. Which was fine, really. Better than he expected. He wasn’t in the mood to fight and he didn’t want to invade someone else’s apartment because of his own squatter. “Good. He drinks and plays Solitaire.”

“How does that work with the screen reader?”

“He doesn’t have a computer.”

“So he plays with a deck of cards?”

Matt shrugged. “Either he has a system or he’s just messing with me. Hard to tell.”

They stopped off at Matt’s first because it was closer. Stick was on the couch, feet up on the coffee table, listening to the news on Matt’s computer. His head was tilted back over the sofa as if he was asleep. Matt wasn’t fooled. “You can stop playing dead,” was all he said to his houseguest as he went to find his misplaced wallet in his bedroom.

He was half-expecting to find it emptied of cash (this whole Christian charity business was really, really hard) when something crashed. It was his coffee table going over as Stick hurled something at Foggy’s head. Foggy dropped the carton of reasonable quality alcohol – which split open – and raised his hands just in time to catch the small stone.

Except that wasn’t what happened. It was a stone – where had Stick gotten a stone? And intentionally brought it inside? It smelled of soil from a community garden – and it was hovering in the air in front of Foggy, inches from his hands. After the moment of shock passed, Foggy shrieked and whipped his hands back, and the stone tore in half – tore in half – and dropped to the floor like, well a stone.

“Ha!” Stick sunk back into the couch triumphantly. “I knew it!”

Foggy was looking at the broken rock on the ground with his heartrate still soaring. Matt was contemplating clobbering Stick with his own cane, but stopped himself short long enough to say, “He’s an airbender?”

“No, you fucking idiot,” Stick said, “he’s an earthbender. _Obviously_. Looks like the lion turtles are taking all comers these days.”

“But I’m not – I don’t have – “ Foggy’s voice spiked because he didn’t want to say Black Sky in front of either of them. Or at all. He was shaking. Matt couldn’t do or say much to calm him, but he walked over and curiously picked up the two stones, which seemed to have been broken in half. Foggy finally found his words. “I didn’t –“

“Foggy,” Matt said carefully, “when we were in the Spirit World, did you have contact with a lion turtle?”

“I, um – “ But he nodded. “He – um, it – saved me from drowning. It and King Bumi. Who told me about earthbending.” He forgot to be scared as he grabbed Matt. “Do I have magic earth powers? Holy shit, do I get to be an Avenger now?”

“You won’t even play poker with them.” And he knew Foggy had been invited. They’d both been.

“Because I’ll lose. I’m not a good poker player. You could beat me and you can’t read the cards.” Foggy was gaining confidence with each passing moment. “Stick, can you teach me how to use magic earth powers?”

“It’s called earth _bending_ , and no.” Stick was amused. “Earth is the last element I learned. And I don’t think Matty will give me the best personal reference.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” Matt said, still baffled as he turned over one of the stones in his hand. “The White Lotus invited him to the Spirit World.”

Stick shrugged. “I’m sure they had their reasons.”

Matt turned back to Foggy, who was now waving his hands in front of the other stone and trying to make it move. “Damnit! Matt, throw the other one at me.”

“ _No_.”

“C’mon! You just saw me catch it!”

Upon deciding Foggy had a point, Matt gently tossed the stone at Foggy’s stomach. Foggy tried to catch it – with his hands – and it slipped beneath his fingers in an ordinary way that only succeeded in making him look clumsy. “This is hard! Why is this so hard?”

But Stick only laughed.


	16. The First Clue

As they entered the new year, Stick disappeared without warning, Foggy kept trying to trick his body into earthbending anything, and Matt Murdock put on his suit and went back to work. Well, one of his suits.

The office was strange, mostly because Karen wasn’t present. Nelson and Murdock currently had no receptionist. Calls were answered by a service to make it look like they had one, and Matt could still smell the scents of perfume and makeup left by the old ones, and at times, whispers of Karen’s shampoo, but there was no one there. The air in his office tasted stale and a little musty from all of the books and files that had been stored there. He could feel the indentation in the carpet where the heavy metal file cabinets had stood. His desk was new, as they could afford to replace the old folding table, but Foggy had otherwise attempted to replicate the old office, with the braille law books and the diplomas behind glass. Matt set up his new computer and put his statue of St. Lucy on the windowsill (mostly to discourage clients from buying him one), and then he got to work.

His return from “medical leave” was unannounced and it wasn’t like they had a full load of cases, which left him time to leave promptly for Mass, but otherwise he put in full days. There would always be falsely-accused (or correctly-accused) clients who couldn’t make bail and would have to accept whatever the DA was offering if left to a public defender.

Matt wasn’t rusty so much as his rhythm with Foggy had been disturbed by his absence, but they found it again together. They worked together and they fought the way they did in the old days, over whether or not they should take the case of someone they knew was guilty and wasn’t repentant, and what the letter of the law was versus what was right. As frustrating as the arguments were, it felt good to have them. It plugged another hole in Matt. It filled up a part of him he didn’t know had gone missing. Eventually, they forced themselves to agree on things, and cases went smoothly.

Until the case of Willy Wilson Pinkerton.

That wasn’t his name, of course. His boring legal name was William Grant, though he wouldn’t answer to it. He qualified for a public defender but spent most of his arrest shouting, “Get me Nelson and Murdock! They’ve got the juice!” And he hadn’t meant lightening in a bottle or anything – he meant juice boxes. He had heard the name around town and connected that with juice boxes. Lawyering and juice boxes.

Needless to say, Willy was crazy.

He was one of the 1.7 million people in America and he who also suffered from severe mental illness, in this case probably schizophrenia, exacerbated by and/or medicated with a combination of marijuana and crystal meth, and he had the rap sheet to prove it. He was arrested for public urination, possession, and resisting arrest, and he was no stranger to the precinct. Most of the officers knew him personally and had interacted with him before. They were sympathetic within the confines of the law, but they also would prefer him to go to prison, if only because prison would house and clothe and feed him, and some of them felt that was an improvement. He’d flunked two rehab programs and had a sealed record from his days as a minor. He had no permanent address and had no way of claiming the various welfare benefits he was entitled to because the system was too complicated for him to manage. It went without saying that he couldn’t afford them, but they weren’t going to turn him away, sight-unseen.

Even though the police had given him something newer to wear, he still smelled of every bad smell New York City had to offer, and Matt had to compose himself in the doorway so he didn’t keel over entirely. He let Foggy ask the questions. He was better at it, though even the genial Foggy Nelson struggled to keep Willy on track discussing the charges and not what type of soda was best for cleaning out warts, and where Willy’s Scandinavian castle was located (not Scandinavia, it turned out).

Willy wasn’t faking any of it. He believed every word he said, even if it completely contradicted something he’d said with as much conviction five minutes before. He understood (vaguely) that he was homeless and mentally ill, and that what he was saying wouldn’t be fully understood for a reason, but that awareness went in and out. But he was prepared to sing – not literally, fortunately – about the various crimes he’d seen committed to avoid jail time or being hospitalized against his will.

“I saw who killed the Devil,” he said, and Matt gave it almost no mind because listening to Willy was so exhausting until he added, “They strung him up like a Christmas tree.”

Willy didn’t tense up but Foggy did. Not that Foggy knew anything that Matt didn’t. He just knew Matt had caught it. “The police need something actionable,” he said, which was what he said about every claim Willy made.

“They think it was the funny-talking KGB men but it wasn’t. It was the pizza guys.”

“That’s not something the police can work with.”

“Do you mean the Mob? The Italian Mob?” Matt asked, knowing how it would make Foggy twitch and contemplate breaking his pencil in half.

Willy did, but it took a while to hammer that out of him, and he couldn’t provide names or identify faces, so the information, like almost everything he said, was useless.

“Even if he could pay us,” Foggy said when they were back in the office, “what could we get him? Reduced changes in exchange for rehab? You think the judge is going to buy that a third time?”

“He’s not aware of the law that he broke. And the police did manhandle him. That would be easy to prove. There’s tape.”

“So we could knock off a charge, maybe, but we’d need a jury for that,” Foggy said, and he was the one who’d seen the tape. “We’ve still got the two he’s guilty of, his record, and he’s already been declared insane but fit to stand trial before. It’ll probably lean that way again.”

“He shouldn’t be hospitalized against his will.”

“The police said he does better when he takes his pills.” And they had some experience in the subject.

“But he has a _right_ not to take them.” On this Matt did feel strongly and Foggy knew not to argue with him. “He’s not inherently violent. He needs a halfway home. A program that’s going to do more than just ask him to go clean and kick him out after 29 days.”

“The judge has to like it.”

“Then we’ll find something the judge will like. We’ll dress it up. Get him to take a plea. Push how much we’re saving the system money.”

“And make the numbers work for that.”

“Right. We can figure out a way.”

Foggy sighed. “We’re still going to need a policy here. Like for every homeless Willy, we take a rich guy who can pay the bills.”

“That’s not the way it works.” He retreated into his office to pack up his things for the night. It was already well past midnight and they were just now back in the office to discuss the case.

Foggy waited outside for a few moments before following him. “Are you thinking what he said was true?”

“Literally everything he said was true in that he believed it. Someone can be wrong and still not be lying.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I thought you wanted clients who could pay us. That was what we had to think of next.”

Foggy pointed at him. “You’re avoiding the issue. And you were furious at me for doing the same thing about Tyson.”

“It’s not an issue,” he said, even though it was a lie, and he hated lying to Foggy. “I just – I don’t think he has anything. Even if he did literally witness the murder of James Wellick, he can’t identify any of the perpetrators. Merely specifying their possible ethnicity isn’t enough.”

“And we’re going to leave it at that?”

“We’re not detectives, Foggy.” He felt bad, not outright lying now but not being as honest as he wanted to be – as honest as Foggy deserved him to be. “Look, I’d love to solve that case. I feel connected to it. But if it was as easy as just looking around, the police would have done it by now. So we focus on defending a man who can’t defend himself instead. I’m fine with that.”

But he wasn’t.

*******************************

Stick said to find a calm, spiritual place to meditate. Matt’s apartment did not fit the bill. There were too many disturbing sounds. Matt could block them out, but he was left with, at best, nothing. Nothing to keep his nerves quiet, nothing to focus on. Nor was the yoga studio much good – there were too many people around, people he couldn’t trust.

“ _When you’re in the Spirit World, your body is completely vulnerable_ ,” Stick had said, “ _You can’t tell what’s happening to it. You need to find a safe place_.”

He was at daily Mass when he realized he might have an option. The main church had only occasional people coming through it, but there was a side chapel that was only used for private ceremonies. It was made of old stone by master craftsman and blocked out the city’s sounds. The room was enclosed on three sides and you had to take several wooden steps down to get to it, so people didn’t find it on their own.

Lantom didn’t sound overly surprised at the request. “You can use it. But don’t, um – “

“Use it to worship false idols?”

“What, were you intending to?”

On Saturday Matt brought a cushion and his small wooden statue of St. Michael, a Christmas gift from the monastery. He put the idol on the ground in front of him and set his glasses and cane down beside it. He crossed himself and forced his legs into a meditative posture.

He knew all of the right breathing techniques and all of the correct ways to sit, either to unlock his chakras or to just keep his back straight for such a long period of time. Stick had never given him formal instruction, but he’d watched him carefully in Florida, listening for the same things Debbie taught him at the Three Jewels Yoga Center. He knew how to calm down, how to focus, and how to let his body fall away.

In the Spirit World distances were dealt with differently; it was Master Izo who pulled him to the Air Turtle, but only after Matt knew to let him, and he pulled him by his Black Sky, as if it were a thread inside him he wasn’t aware was hanging loose. It had no location and he’d never been aware of it in the material world. He recalled touching Stick’s Black Sky, and where it was, rather than how much it had changed things between them. He had that power too, if he wanted it. It was available to him.

Black Sky was linked to the Spirit World. It was his gateway and gatekeeper in and out. It hovered between two worlds, never fully at home in either, and that wouldn’t change so long as Matt was alive. He had to tug, to pull himself up and out of the material world, at least temporarily.

_Perfect love, cast out fear_ , he repeated, until the words ceased having meaning and were just energy in space. He was not afraid. Black Sky had no reason to be afraid. Wherever it wanted to go, he would follow it. He would let it go free.

*******************************

He was looking at Black Sky.

His Black Sky. It didn’t have a name that he knew about. It didn’t talk to him. Maybe it just hadn’t found its voice yet. He was sitting on the ground, looking at it, and it was looking back at him, all energy around the edges of its child body, but less anger and fear than before.

“Don’t be afraid,” he told it. “You don’t have to be afraid anymore.”

Black Sky was gone. Something had taken its place. Matt had that extra level of awareness that he gained in the Spirit World. He was on a ledge, with a starless sky above him, and across from him was a kid, also cross-legged, probably about twelve. Unlike Black Sky, he was not a young Matt Murdock. He was Asian, his head was shaved, and he was wearing a sash over his left shoulder that made him look like a Shaolin monk. Matt was aware that he had arrow tattoos on his body, but couldn’t do much to process that information because he still wasn’t _seeing_ it.

“I’m Avatar Aang,” the kid said. Yeah, definitely a kid. On the edge of puberty, from his voice, which was enthusiastic. “I’ll be your airbending teacher.” He leapt to his feet – no, it was more like he stood up by pushing the air out from beneath him so he glided into a standing position without using his arms to prop himself up. “Are you ready to start?”

Matt tried to copy him and failed, so he stood up the normal way. “You’re a kid.”

“This was the age I mastered airbending,” Aang said, pointing proudly to himself. “And waterbending, earthbending, and firebending. _And_ I saved the world. Even for an Avatar, that was a lot.”

“Um, sure,” Matt said. “Have you been teaching Stick?”

“I don’t relate to living people the same way you do,” Aang said. “I only exist as a spiritual projection. So unless he’s in front of me, I don’t really know who you’re talking about. I can only enter your world if you call me, and I can’t interact with parts of it. All I know is you’re an airbender and you need training.”

“My name is Matt,” he said.

“Hi Matt!” Aang waved. This kid was really upbeat.

“I’m blind, if you can’t tell. I don’t know if that ... affects anything.”

“I suppose it does.” Aang shrugged. “Bending relies on being able to bend energy more than the elements themselves. That’s more difficult for people who bend the more visual elements to understand. They see rock or water and they think they’re being it, but they’re bending its element. Material items are just a construct of spiritual energy.” He put a finger to his chin. “Sorry, that’s a really big concept for the first day. The first thing I learned about airbending was how to throw around my toys. And then how to put them back in place again.”

Matt laughed. “Yeah, let’s start with something like that.”

*******************************

Airbending required katas, just like the fighting instructions Stick had given him to practice with when he was a kid. He couldn’t bend at first, but Aang said he had to focus on memorizing the movements anyway, and in the end it was like any other martial art form. He had no idea how long he spent with Aang, but when he woke himself back up, he was relieved when his phone told him the time and it was only a few hours. Time had moved forward for his body – he was hungry, thirsty, and a little sore from staying perfectly still, and he wordlessly thanked Lantom with a nod on the way out.

He didn’t have much time to practice over the next few days because they took Willy’s case. Bail was set much too high but they weren’t upset over not being able to argue it down. Having him in a structured environment for the time being with a roof over his head solved the immediate winter problems of exposure and food, and chances were he would just try to score more drugs and run up some other charges. Matt and Foggy went back and forth with different homeless and mental health resource people in New York City, trying to find a place for him beyond the standard cold turkey rehab programs (which would discourage him from taking his other medications, the ones he needed, with their ‘100% clean living’ philosophies), if his lawyers could get the charges reduced. They needed experts to do interviews with their client and testify on Willy’s behalf, and that cost money, and their office slush fund was more for late night pizza orders and emergency coffee runs.

Matt was surprised – but, he supposed, not _too_ surprised – when Father Lantom appeared at their office door with a lock box. “I might have dropped Willy’s name and some of the parishioners took up a collection fund.” He handed over the box, which Matt handed to Foggy without opening. “I assumed them that this would be the right direction for their donations.”

“Thank you, Father.”

“Yes, thanks,” Foggy said, just as politely. “We also might need some character witnesses. People who’ve lived in the area a long time and know him.”

Lantom nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.”

After that, Foggy didn’t hassle Matt about the hours he worked that he had no one to bill for. Not once.

*******************************

After work, therapy, and Mass, Matt did spent what little time he had with Aang. Matt could summon him into the Material World without entering the Spirit World, even when he was in Matt’s apartment, Aang was more of a ghost, and couldn’t interact with the physical world beyond Matt and other living things. Aang, from what Matt gathered, had lived a long life and then died a very long time ago, eons and eons, possibly on another planet entirely, so he had no current information on the Spirit World, or Master Izo, or members of the modern Order of the White Lotus (of which, in his time, he hadn’t even been a full member). He could talk about the world he knew, where a considerable percentage of the population were born with at least one form of bending, and their entire civilization was structured around it. He didn’t know of people who had spirits inside them except the Avatar himself, who always carried the spirit of Raava, the embodiment of light and goodness and creation, from incarnation to incarnation. Aang had a tendency to talk in an excited fashion about stuff that was way over Matt’s head, but Matt didn’t want to let the poor kid down by stopping him.

He could see how Stick wouldn’t be able to stand a sweet, outgoing, all-powerful twelve-year-old.

Foggy made a surprise visit one night with an offer of leftovers (and just to check in on Matt, who was spending so much time alone). “Who’s the blue kid?”

“The what?”

“The translucent blue spirit kid standing in your living room.”

Aang waved, because of course he did. “Hi! I’m Aang. I’m an airbender.”

Matt just turned to Foggy. “You can see him? I’ve been assuming people couldn’t.” When he wasn’t in the Spirit World, he was more aware of the fact that Aang wasn’t really there. He had no smell, no heartbeat, and when he moved, he didn’t make a sound.

“Uh, yeah, you totally have a spirit kid and he’s totally visible. And hi, Aang. I’m Foggy. I’m um, sort of an earthbender?”

“You can see me because you’ve been to the Spirit World,” Aang explained, “and because you’re attuned to Matt, and he wants you to see me.”

“Oh thank G-d,” Matt said. “I mean, what?”

Foggy ignored him. “Can you teach me earthbending? Because it’s like, really hard.”

“I know, right?” Aang said. “I had the most trouble with earthbending because it’s the opposite element to air, but I had to learn all of them in term. But I can’t teach you. You need your own teacher. You can get one by meditating in the Spirit World!”

“Wow, you make it sound so easy,” Foggy said. “So, Aang, do you like Thai food?”

“I don’t think he can eat food, Foggy,” Matt said.

“Is it vegetarian? I’m a vegetarian,” Aang answered. “Oh, and I can’t eat food or interact with ordinary objects. Sometimes I forget that. It’s weird, not being alive.”

“Trust me,” Foggy said with a mouthful of noodles, “Being dead doesn’t even begin to appear on my scale of weird these days.”

*******************************

In the end, they found a program for Willy. There was no guarantee it would actually help him, but it was better than prison time, being institutionalized against his will, or any of the programs he’d already flunked. They also managed to track down his relatives in Washington state, who’d written him off, and a cousin agreed to sponsor him if the church charity funds paid the costs. The judge agreed to the terms, and so did Willy (sort of), though it was hard to tell how much of it he was really going to comprehend. The experts were paid for, and Nelson and Murdock was only a tiny bit in the red for their unpaid hours of work, which they decided they were both willing to live with. It gave them a reputation with homeless community advocates, and other cases they couldn’t quite afford to take started to trickle in, but they held off until a foundation (Coalition for the Homeless) was willing to pay to get a few clients’ charges reduced or dismissed entirely. It wasn’t high profile Atticus Finch-style murder cases, and they were rarely going to be in front of a jury, where Matt did his best work, but it was the type of firm they’d _wanted_ to have, so they would make it work, even if their apartment fund was running out and Foggy still had at least a year until his dissertation was ready for review and Salvation Army was still their main source of clothing and office supplies.

Meanwhile, posters went up across Hell’s Kitchen offering money for Daredevil sightings. There weren’t any to report and the number itself was fake, but it got people talking, and while they were talking, someone was listening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took almost two stories, but Daredevil's coming back! What do you guys think?


	17. Dark Knight Rising

“Hello, Melvin.”

Melvin Potter spun around. Matt had tried to not be a creeper about it, but it wasn’t like he could ring the doorbell in the old suit. It was the first time he was wearing it and it felt heavy and claustrophobic around his skin.

“H-Hi! Hey, I thought you were dead.”

He didn’t make the obvious joke about the devil. “A lot of people thought that.”

“I thought somebody killed you.” Melvin scratched his head. “I mean, not you you. The kid. I s-saw him on the news. He didn’t look like you.”

Matt supposed Melvin knew better than most people. “He wasn’t me. I’m trying to find the people who killed him.”

“They hurt him real bad,” Melvin said. “What do you need from me?”

“I need my suit to be lighter. Less restrictive.” He didn’t have drawings because ... well, Melvin Potter did not need to know why he couldn’t provide him with drawings. “I need to be able to move fast.”

“It’s already pretty light. Not sure what I can do about that,” the tailor/armorer said. “You’re gonna be more vulnerable, if I open things up for movement.”

“I can work with that.”

*******************************

The thing about Willy’s information was that even if it was unreliable, it wasn’t entirely false. The group that had killed Jim Wellick had, according to him, specifically been the mafia, which meant they were Italian-American and spoke English, the latter being key for Matt, who would otherwise rely on his phone’s ability to record conversations and translate them later on his laptop. People always liked to talk and when he focused he could hear about two blocks out, more if it was quiet and the air was still. Airbenders were supposed to be able to use their internal energy to control the temperature of the air around them, but it was something Matt would need more time to master because he was freezing up on the rooftops, bundled up in layers of (what he hoped was) black clothing and soft-soled slippers that didn’t slow him down or make as much noise as his old boots. It took him a week to narrow the search down to a few back rooms where the chatter was more on the illegal side. By then he’d refreshed the posters twice, changing up the email address and phone number again. Twitter had reported it as a hoax several times, but it still got people talking, and that was the intention.

Claire was the only one who figured out what he was up to, or at least that he was up to something. “I don’t know what you’re doing, but it has people talking.”

“I haven’t done anything.” He added, because she deserved it, “Yet.”

“I know this might hurt your feelings, but we’ve done okay without you.” She was lying, though it was hard for him to tell about exactly what.

He didn’t call her on it. “I’m not offended. I’m just trying to draw out someone specific.”

“If you come back out you’ll have a lot of fans,” she said. “And a lot of enemies.”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t have anything to say. He didn’t really care about either of those things; neither did she. Claire was good at talking her way through something without his help. Otherwise she would just get mad like he wasn’t listening to her.

“You can’t turn the clock back, Matt.”

“I know.” He didn’t say what they both knew – that he hadn’t tried to use this time to pursue a relationship with her, either, because it would always come down to this point. “I was young and stupid. And bad at dodging bullets.”

“And knives. And bats. And that mace.”

“But I thought I was doing the right thing,” he continued. “Something I believed in. What else am I supposed to do with my life?”

“And here I thought, with the suits and fancy ties, that you had a day job.”

Matt smiled. “There’s a limit to how much I can do.”

“You’re not bringing back Wellick. You’re not bringing back anybody.”

She was wrong, but he was too polite to say it outright. “I’m bringing back the Devil. Isn’t that enough?”

*******************************

His billy clubs were too heavy. He ordered aluminum on the internet and fixed them up so he could screw them together into a longer pole. Gravity would have to do a lot of the work for him, but Stick probably hadn’t been wrong about staying out of the way not being a bad idea. In his new suit he couldn’t afford to stand and take a beating, but hopefully, he wouldn’t have to. Aang said he could make a glider and fly like a parasailer, but he wasn’t ready to test that theory out in the real world yet. It also wouldn’t help in the era of CCTV if he _flew_ across Manhattan like some kind of Avenger.

The strange thing was how _easy_ it all was. Every step to this point in his life over the last few years had been agonizing in some way or another, but shimmying up a drain pipe and jumping between rooftops while ambulances blared didn’t begin to strain him. Of course it helped that he was on better terms with gravity now than an average person should be, but walking into court, into church, into his office – all of that was hard and that was just _walking_.

This was easy. He enjoyed it.

His bending was erratic at best and he wasn’t good at improvising, but he understood the basic concepts: Use the space around you. Stay out of the way. Find the path of least resistance. Aang believed in violence only in cases of absolute necessity, so Matt didn’t explain his world to him. And hey, the kid was a ghost. He didn’t need to know everything.

The rest wasn’t hard. He posed for some CCTV footage in the old suit, got people talking more, and managed to avoid Foggy by having picked the weekend he was in the Caymans with Marci. The people who’d killed the other Daredevil hadn’t gone far. Why should they? They’d succeeded in shutting down a succession of devils, which had never been fully able to restart. Daredevil had been regulated to a stub on Wikipedia and part of a Missed in History podcast covering unsolved urban crimes.

They were just going to have to do a new episode.

He didn’t want to make a big deal of it. He was supposed to avoid and deflect. He was supposed to get in, do his job, and get out. But he couldn’t leave the police with nothing but some unconscious gangsters, so he brought a tape recorder. Their confession would mean nothing, even on tape, after he edited his voice out, but if they talked the talking might lead to clues that could be used as evidence against them. And it wasn’t hard to get them talking.

He was wearing his new suit when he found them. It was lighter, but it was still red and had horns. They were low-level thugs, even if one of them became a made man over the original killing. He didn’t want to wait for them put it together. He really wanted to beat these people until they bled, but he held himself back. He wanted them to know exactly who he was. “So,” he said, “you’re the guys who think you killed the devil?”

One of them – the tallest – put a gun to Matt’s head. “He was bigger than you.”

But he wasn’t faster. By the time the mobster removed the safety, Matt was gone. He circled around him and struck him with clubs, then was gone again. Evade. If that fails, deflect. _Don’t be there to get shot_.

They put a lot of holes in the walls, but none in him. One of them shot the other, actually, and he had to end the fight quickly so he could bandage the wound and stop the bleeding. By then, the other two were unconscious, but the bleeder was ready to talk. He was ready to _sing_.

*******************************

In the morning, Matt Murdock walked in without a scratch on him and Foggy hurled at the newspaper at him. His hands were in fists and Matt knew he was resisting the urge to wield the paper as a weapon and club him senseless with it.

Matt calmly ran his fingers against the heavy newsprint. He could feel the weight of the ink. Color photograph, layout for the Post. “Um, I still can’t read this.”

“Fuck you, you know what kind of article would get me upset,” Foggy said, and Matt gulped because it was true. He also didn’t answer. He didn’t want to give any more openings. (Also, he still kind of didn’t know what the article said.)

“Do you even know why I’m pissed at you?”

“I have some theories.”

Foggy laughed with disbelief. “Because you didn’t fucking tell me, Matt. And when have I been anything other than painfully honest with you, after all of the shit we’ve been through together? I had my hand in a sky bison’s mouth. A sky bison we then rode across a Spirit World so you could have your magical soul quest and feel better about how special you are. And I can’t even – ugh – earthbend.” He slammed his fists down on Matt’s desk, and in the distance, something crashed. Something suspiciously brick-sounding. “That was a coincidence.”

“Are you destroying our office?”

“Do not change the subject on me, Murdock!”

Matt resisted the urge. He had noticed Foggy’s new pet rock collection. “I knew you wouldn’t approve.”

“But you knew you were going to do it. And I knew, too.”

“You did?”

“Of course I fucking did!” Foggy picked up the paper and tossed it further in Matt’s direction, as if that would help. “Three known mobsters, all with criminal records, found tied to a lamppost outside the police station two days after a Daredevil sighting. And I bet you did it on Brett’s shift, too.”

He hadn’t planned it that way, but ... “Maybe.”

Foggy sighed. He could never maintain rage for very long. It was one of his more endearing qualities. It drained him. “I always knew where this was going. You weren’t going to go straight and narrow if you came back to the city. And you didn’t go get the shit beaten out of you by Stick so you could discuss the finer points of criminal law with him. But I wish you’d told me, Matt. I deserved it.”

Matt was speechless. Not because he didn’t know what to say, but because he was embarrassed to say it. “I – I know that,” he finally stammered. “I was afraid.”

“You’re the guy who jumps around rooftops and beats up criminals and you’re afraid of me?”

“Y-Yeah,” Matt said. “I think you might be the only person.” It was a fear of disappointing Foggy, but the distinction didn’t completely matter. “I’m sorry. It was one time.”

“Don’t lie to me again. Just do me that favor.”

“Okay. I mean, it was one time – “

“But you didn’t do this whole thing to just get revenge for Wellick.”

Avoid, deflect. “It wasn’t just about him. Or revenge. It was about justice. They’re going to be charged. Go to trial. I can’t testify and their confessions will be thrown out but I’ve seen the police work with less. The FBI was wiretapping their operation for years. They’ll use any excuse to nail them on a major charge. At best, they get manslaughter one. Their bosses in Jersey aren’t going to bail them out for that. They were supposed to be selling phony credit cards and laundering money, not killing vigilantes.”

Foggy’s heartrate settled a bit. “So you did do your homework.”

“Yeah, the law kinda requires it. And this was as close to the law as I was going to get.”

His partner wasn’t happy, but he wasn’t mad at him either. He was trying to settle on an emotion. “If you tell me about it, that makes me an accessory.”

“I’m aware of that, Foggy.”

“Just – we’ll figure it out, okay? I know I can’t stop you from being you. I just wish I could sometimes.”

“And I wish I could convince you that a can of Pringles is not breakfast food.” He held out his fist for a bump. Foggy could never resist a bump. “Partners?”

“I’m going to regret this,” Foggy said as he returned the bump. “But yeah. Partners. As always, weirdo.”

Matt grinned. “Now let’s go find out what part of our building just mysteriously fell down.”

*******************************

Matt could feel Brett’s tension before he properly identified him. Brett Mahoney was waiting for him on the steps of the courthouse, not Brett’s usual stomping grounds, and Matt knew something was wrong. “Sergeant Mahoney.”

“That’s Detective-Sergeant,” Brett said, pointing to the metal insignia on his chest. “I’m assuming you still can’t see these.”

“Um, no, I can’t.” Matt decided not to be offended. That was not what this was about. “Can I help you with something?”

“I can handle bullshit from Foggy, but not from you,” Brett said. “What the hell was last night?”

“Day and night don’t mean a lot to me. Can you be more specific?”

Brett gave an exaggerated sigh that was practically a growl. “You know what I mean. You think I’m stupid?”

“I never said that,” Matt said quietly. “I never would. But I’m afraid I can’t comment on whatever you’re referring to.”

As fed up as Brett obviously was, Matt couldn’t rise to meet him on this. Evade. Deflect. That was the lawyer in him, too. Brett grumbled. “You’re a slimy bastard, Murdock.”

“I want the same thing you do, Detective-Sergeant Mahoney,” he said. “Justice.”

“So you put people away and defend them?”

Matt knew obfuscation was at an end, but that didn’t mean he was going to give a police officer material to work with that would hold up in court. “How long have you known?”

“Since about a month after you disappeared. Foggy’s not the liar he thinks he is. I may just have been driving a desk then but I am a detective. Give me a little credit.”

Matt smiled. “Credit where credit is due.” He remembered that he’d asked Brett about Daredevil, and Brett had said, ‘He probably got in over his head.’ So, not technically lying. “We both have our part to play in the legal system, Brett. Your job is to arrest criminals, the state’s job is to make a case against them, and my job as a defense attorney is to make sure their case is strong enough not to fall apart under scrutiny. We want the guilty to serve their time and the innocent to not be unfairly punished. I don’t see a conflict here.”

“I didn’t think you’d fess up to anything,” Brett said. “You’re too smart for that. You got anything else for me today?”

“If I had any evidence that could aid a police investigation, I would be required to turn it over immediately. But it would be useless if it couldn’t hold up in court. You know that.” He tapped his watch. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a bail hearing to attend.”

Brett shook his head. “You’re going to work up a lot of conflicts of interest.”

“I would recuse myself from any case where I felt I couldn’t do my best to represent a client,” he assured him. “Good day, Officer.”

Brett was cursing under his breath but he did say, “Have a nice day, Murdock.”

Matt supposed that was a sign he was in the clear – for the time being, anyway.

*******************************

Not everyone would be happy Daredevil was back. After messing up so badly with Foggy, Matt decided not to repeat his mistakes. When he showed up at Claire’s, it was with pizza and flowers.

“Are you trying to romance me now?” she said, amused and annoyed at the same time.

“No.” Their relationship – friendship, whatever it was – had fairly clear boundaries. “I just – I didn’t tell you. I didn’t tell anyone. But you deserved to know.”

“Yeah, you guessed right.” But she did open the door for him to enter. “But you’re not hurt.”

“No.”

“Gonna try to keep it that way?” She was smiling. He could always tell. He could swear he heard the muscles in her face twitch. “Then you won’t have much use for me.”

“Well,” Matt said, “I don’t think I could eat this whole pizza by myself.”

Claire was definitely giving him a look but she took the pizza and they ate it while watching a Netflix show they were working their way through. They sat in silence often, happy with just each other’s presence, but knowing why it didn’t evolve into anything more. Claire had closed the door on a relationship with an active vigilante, and Matt wasn’t sure he could properly maintain one anyway, so he wasn’t going to fault her for that. After the episode was over, they listened to the sounds of the city as night became early morning.

“I take it you’re not going out?”

“No.” He liked her couch. It had good and bad memories, but he liked the old-fashioned texture under his fingers, especially with all of the knots and loose threads that betrayed age and use. He wasn’t the first person to like it. “It’s not – I’m not planning on it being a nightly thing. I wanted to catch those guys, and I did.” He admitted, again because she deserved it, “I suppose there’ll be other guys, sooner or later. But these guys, who killed the other Daredevil – he deserved justice, and I was the only one who could get it for him.”

“They could get off. They’re still assembling charges, and not every defense attorney is as honest as you are.”

“And I would have a conflict of interest,” he said, smiling a little. “I wasn’t going to kill them. I’m not – I’m never going back to that.” The smile faded. He did not guess at her expression. He just knew she hadn’t left the room. She’d never asked what he did when he was gone, just let things slip out naturally, when they needed to. “They say – my counselor says – that I wasn’t making conscious decisions. I was brainwashed. But I still remember some of it. Most of it, maybe. I remember how it felt and knowing how it felt – you can’t came back from that. You can’t unlearn it.”

“Would you want to?”

How did Claire know what questions to ask? “No. I would sleep better, but I wouldn’t have ... tools that I have now. To know how far I _should_ go rather than how far I _can_ go.

Claire took a deep breath before speaking again. “Matt, if it could be anyone but you, that’s what I would want. To know you’re never going to be in harm’s way again, even if it’s because you put yourself there. But if it has to be you over someone else ... then I’m glad it’s you.” She put her hand over Matt’s and held it. “But don’t get too stupid. This city has mourned you enough.”

He grinned, but he knew she was right.

*******************************

2 Hours South of Mexico City

By the time Carlos was done with his survey, the gringos had arrived. There was an incredibly bulky man hiding muscles under his clothing, covered in scars, but barefoot driving the jeep. He wore a scowl on his scar-covered face but said nothing as he walked around to open the side door and help his client out. In addition to being old and frail, the white priest was blind, his eyes a similar color to his clerical collar. He swiped his cane around, finding the tires of the jeep in the mud.

“You’re too late,” Carlos said in Spanish. “The demon is dead. Everyone is dead.”

The priest jerked his head sideways, in no particular direction, then whispered something to his driver/bodyguard before answering in fluent Spanish, “Is that so?” He didn’t sound like a priest, but Carlos didn’t know how exorcists sounded. “Does sound rather quiet.”

The birds were out in full force, and the hawks and other or carrion eaters were coming to make short work of the corpses, but the dogs were dead too, gunned down in the fight. Very few bodies were visible from their vantage point.

“The police aren’t even here yet,” Carlos said. “If they think it’s drugs, they don’t rush.”

The priest took a deep breath. “Doesn’t smell like drugs.”

“Tunnels. There must be tunnels,” Carlos said, thinking about losing the remains of his breakfast at the prospect of having to take another sweep through the town with the priest. “Narcos come for the tunnels.”

“Too far out, don’t you think?” The priest sounded suspiciously well-informed for a foreign priest. He was supposed to be from Spain, they said. A real expert on demons. Cost a small fortune, and now there would be no one to pay him.

Carlos wondered if he would just leave.

But he didn’t leave. He walked straight into the center of town, poking at everything – including bodies – he could find with his cane while talking to his bodyguard in another language that certainly didn’t sound like Latin. He didn’t even bother with the whitewashed church. Their inspection was cold and efficient and they finished quickly.

The priest removed a photo from his jacket and held it up to Carlos. It was upside down. “This is the boy?”

Carlos nodded. “Yes.”

“But he’s not with the other bodies.”

He didn’t want to tell them he hadn’t inspected every face. It was too hard to tell, in some cases. The men who came from the city had emptied cartridges into bodies to make them difficult to identify. “Everyone died. How would one boy get away?”

“He’s a very special boy,” the priest said, using an odd present tense. Carlos decided he didn’t like this man, and he didn’t think he was a priest. “Someone killed a whole village to get their hands on him. I don’t think they would just leave him behind.”

“How do you know that?”

“I told you,” the priest repeated, annoyed. “He’s a special boy. If I were you, I would just be glad he’s gone.”


	18. On Watch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to ask this earlier, but I really need help translating some Spanish dialogue, so I don't have to rely on Google Translate. If you can possibly help me with that, email me at djclawson at gmail. Thanks!

“For the record,” Foggy said, “even the spirit kid thinks this is a bad idea.”

“I didn’t say that,” Aang said. “And my name is Aang. I was an Avatar!”

“You heard him,” Matt said. “Show him some respect. He was an Avatar.”

“At least put on a helmet, man.”

Matt shook his head. “Gonna slow me down.”

Foggy frowned and took another look at the controls of the pitching machine. Matt had two trained on him now, only because Foggy absolutely positively said no to three, and because they were very heavy to move. He was already unlucky enough to find a night opening at a set of battling cages buried so deep in Brooklyn that there would be no one to question firing balls at a blind guy with no bat. And Aang was apparently not visible to those who had no connection to the Spirit World and he thought the idea, in whatever concept he could understand it, was _great_. Foggy said, “Okay, I’m going to the absolute slowest setting here.”

Matt lifted the noise-canceling headphones and put them over his ears. “Don’t be afraid. It’s not how hard I hit the mat, it’s – “

“Yeah, yeah, and you’re not on a mat, you’re on tarmac, and you’re not going to beat this machine into submission like a boxing rival,” Foggy said. “Give me a signal.” Matt nodded and raised his thumb. He could hear him, even with the headphones, just far more dimly. “Okay ... here it comes ...”

 _Pop_. The first ball, basically fired with the same velocity as an underhand pitch, struck Matt right in the chest. Damnit.

“Stop?”

Matt refocused his stance. “Keep going!”

“I hate you,” he said under his breath.

“I heard that!”

“Then why are we doing this!”

“Just throw! Or fire!”

 _Pop_. Second ball, Matt did manage to dodge, but by jumping out of the way, not airbending it or anything. Foggy understood, logistically, why they were doing it – Matt relied almost entirely on his hearing and sonar abilities to tell where people were when he fought, and he needed to be able to fall back on just air, which was more the feeling of touch, the least-used of his four remaining senses.

“Keep going!” Matt shouted.

Foggy sighed and turned up the machine. _Pop. Pop. Pop_. Matt was getting better as he got a feel for the air around him, or whatever it was that airbenders did. _Pop. Pop_. He made himself a mini-tornado, with the balls circling around him, and told Foggy to turn on the other machine.

If anyone walked by and saw this – fuck it, it was Brooklyn, they could make up their own explanation. It was pretty hard to explain even when you knew what it was. Matt was doing pretty well until he started juggling one ball too many and took a step back, which broke the flow around him and balls dropped on all sides, a number of them on his head. “Ow.”

Foggy switched off the machines. “Yeah, ow. What did we say about helmets?”

“That they would slow me down.”

Foggy turned to Aang. “You guys don’t have helmets?”

Aang rubbed his shorn head. “We don’t even have _hair_.”

*******************************

The week just got better and better.

On Thursday, someone succeeded in getting the jump on Daredevil. Or, _someones_. A crowd of people spiked him with some kind of spray and left him in an alley for anyone to find, but it ended up being Iron Man, who didn’t call Foggy until he had already taken a barely-conscious, flailing, hyperventilating Matt to the Tower.

Foggy didn’t spend a lot of time on the phone when he got a call from Tony Stark. He was sure the man, who he’d only interacted with once, and post-battle, had a lot of quips ready, but he wasn’t interested in them. “Okay.”

“F.R.I.D.A.Y. will let you in.” Being Tony, he didn’t explain that F.R.I.D.A.Y. was actually a female-voiced AI program, but Foggy figured it out quickly. The Avengers tower’s lobby was steel and glass and mostly dimmed for night, but the security guard swiped him through the side entrance and pushed the elevator button for him. Because of the high security, not all of the buttons had proper braille labels. Matt would be polite but quietly pissed.

Matt. Fuck. Foggy cursed under his breath. He was really hoping Matt would be Daredevil for at least six months before getting himself into one of these situations, but no, he’d barely made it two. Anxiety that was normally dormant sat like a pit in Foggy’s stomach, unable to be digested. He channeled some of that into anger at Matt, which he lost all of upon seeing his friend on a table in what must have been the Avengers’ medical bay, stripped from the waist up and covered in a gown. What skin wasn’t covered – particularly his face, as his cowl was missing – was red with irritation. His eyes were open, the pupils darting around aimlessly.

“Hey, Matt,” Foggy said, forcing his voice to a normal level as he took Matt’s hand. Matt flinched at his touch but Foggy held on. “How are you?”

“He can’t hear you.” Tony Stark emerged from whatever fancy-ass holographic terminal he was behind. He was out of his suit, in overly casual clothes for a billionaire, smelling vaguely of long-smoked weed, and he didn’t have that blue thing in his chest anymore. Foggy couldn’t remember why it wasn’t there. He didn’t keep up with the personal lives of the Avengers he didn’t know, and even the ones he did – they were celebrities, but it still seemed rude. And after that whole Sokovia) thing, Foggy was even more reluctant to ask, unless it involved Matt. Tony continued, “They paralyzed his eardrums with a sonar device. It’ll come back, but it’ll take some time. And smell, taste – the whole works. They used some kind of spray.”

“They?”

“F-Foggy?” Matt shouted. His voice was hoarse.

“Yeah, Matt. It’s me.” He tightened his fingers around Matt’s. “Can you hear me?”

“Foggy?” Matt repeated. “Are you there? Where am I?”

Foggy sighed and turned his attention back to Tony. “Do you have a braille printer?”

“How about a touch screen?” Tony brandished his new device like a child looking for his father’s approval. It was made of glass, but when Foggy accepted it, he could feel the metal magnetic fillings rise from the surface. “Just write what you want with the stylus and it’ll translate. Cool, huh?”

“Yeah, very.” But he was distracted. He wrote, _Avengers Tower, going to be okay_ , and passed it to Matt, belatedly realizing he was probably sharing a million-dollar piece of proprietary equipment. “Um, thanks. Where is everybody?”

“Oh, the Avengers? Assembled upstate, doing their thing. I’m just a consultant now,” Tony said casually, implying that the split was anything but casual. “Nat called me. She can’t get here for another hour.”

“Foggy?” At least Matt’s fingers weren’t numb. It took him a few tries to try to read from the device, as the magnetic fillings wouldn’t always stick properly and got caught up in the static around his fingers. “Who brought me here?”

Foggy wrote, _Iron Man_ , with the stylus and the braille popped up for Matt. “Who found him?”

“She got a call from her ninja friends. Or, I don’t think they’re friends. They told her where to find him, so I went. Found a stack of papers explaining the situation. Can’t read them for shit.” He pointed to the envelope on the table next to the med bay.

Foggy opened it and pulled them out. They were exclusively in braille. He didn’t hand them over to Matt, who was getting antsy, shoving the touchpad in Foggy’s direction and asking, “Who’s here? Can they leave? I can’t – I can’t sense them, I don’t know who’s here.”

Foggy raised his eyebrows at Tony, who stepped out of the room. _Just Tony, but I made him leave_ , he wrote. “Tell me if you can hear me.”

Matt took a deep breath. It sounded pained. “I only have touch, but I – I know – I can tell some things. Vibrations. Air. Nothing else. Stay. Can you stay?”

 _Relax_ , Foggy wrote to him. _I’m staying_. _Your senses are going to come back_. _It’s only temporary._

“Okay,” Matt responded after reading the pad. “How long?”

_Not sure, should be soon. Natasha is coming from other Avengers place._

Matt’s eyes were bouncing around less. He even closed them for a minute. “Why?”

_She was the one who was contacted to find you. Not available. Sent Tony._

“Who? Who contacted her? I think it was – I think they were Japanese.”

Foggy looked at the stack of papers. Braille was not the most succinct of scripts _. Tony said ninjas. They left notes for you to read._

Matt leaned his head back in resignation. “The Hand. They have property in Hell’s Kitchen.”

_Did they talk to you?_

“No, just jumped me. I only got a few hits off.” He sighed. “They knew how to disable me.”

 _It’s okay_.

“I know, I just – “ He tried to sit up a little, which cost him too much strength. He was probably using most or all of his concentration to try to build a feeling of the world around him. “I feel stupid.”

_You’ve always been stupid, Matt._

“Thanks,” Matt said with just a glimmer of a smile on his cracked lips. Whatever they had sprayed him with, it looked like it had to have been sanded off. “Y-You know how to lift a guy’s spirits.”

 _Well I’m not here for the view_.

Foggy gave the touchpad a break after demanding Matt rest. He initially resisted, but after being assured that Foggy wouldn’t leave, and no one else would come, Matt gave up on the losing battle with his body and closed his eyes, his breathing slowing down a few minutes after that. Foggy dislodged his hand and grabbed the documents. Being able to read braille was a handy skill when you lived with Matt Murdock for any period of time.

It was the Hand, though they only identified themselves with a stamp of a Japanese symbol at the bottom of their letter, would have been unhelpful if he hadn’t already had a guess. It was essentially a “stay out of our territory, and we’ll stay out of your life” notice, with some reference to a deal that might have been struck without Matt’s consent. Since everything was coded – because they were fuckin’ ninjas – it wasn’t that helpful in providing real information, just a clarification on the strong warning they’d given him tonight.

There was a knock at the glass door and Foggy could see Natasha on the other side, but he texted her. _He doesn’t want to be disturbed and he doesn’t want me to leave him. You’ll have to wait, sorry_. He was telling Black Widow to wait. That was pretty cool.

She was understanding. And she had the right cell phone. _He okay?_

_Stark says he’ll recover. Ninjas took out his senses._

_I told Tony to call you_ , she said. _You need anything?_

He was hungry, but he had a promise to Matt to keep. _I’m fine_.

*******************************

Matt slept for about half an hour before waking with a groan. “Foggy?”

Foggy looked up from his iPhone game. “Yeah?”

“You – you’re still here.” Matt licked his lips. “Can I have some water?”

“Yeah – wait, you can hear me?”

Matt nodded, but didn’t sit up. “Not well, but there’s sound. Mostly ringing. It feels – it’s good to hear something.”

“That’s great, Matt. It’s really great!” He squeezed his hand for good measure. “Is it okay if Natasha comes in? And maybe we turn on the automated doctor?”

“Yeah.” Matt was too worn out to disagree with much of anything. He accepted water and a little apple juice. The AI doctor informed him that he needed hydration and even talked him into a shot of anti-inflammatories. Foggy waved Natasha in, but Foggy had to tell Matt about her presence before Matt realized she was there. “Hey Nat.” He had some kind of working relationship with her where they shared information – Foggy knew that much. Hopefully nothing else, but Matt was never smart about his choices in the female companionship department.

“Hey,” Nat said, more gently than the way she usually spoke. “How are you feeling?”

“Shitty, but it’s my fault. I wasn’t fast enough.”

“Matt, this wasn’t a random mugger or drug dealer. These guys came in to take you down.” She was polite enough not to say that it was two Hand members who had kidnapped Matt so successfully in the first place. “They knew exactly what they were doing.”

“They told me they had a deal,” Matt said. “Stick mentioned it, too, but I don’t remember negotiating anything.”

“It was done by proxy,” Natasha said, betraying some of the guilt in her voice. “We negotiated with the Hand to get them to turn over the people who took you, and in return, Stick was supposed to lay off them and their operations. You got sorted in with Stick.”

“They’re bringing things into Hell’s Kitchen,” he replied. “Weapons, mostly. Some drugs. They have that building that I haven’t gone near, but they’re down in the docks, slipping things in under the radar. I’ve heard them. Am I just supposed to turn my head?”

“I think they made it pretty clear what will happen if you don’t,” Natasha said. She could be surprisingly practical. She also saved Foggy from having to say it. “Look, if you want to get killed out there, that’s your business. But I don’t think that’s really your goal.”

Matt took a deep breath. He was not willing to admit that he was beaten, not by her, but by the very people he’d sworn to protect Hell’s Kitchen from. “No, it’s not.”

“Wait for an opening,” she told him. “It’ll come.”

Foggy wasn’t so sure he wanted that to happen, but if the promise held Matt back, he was willing to sign off on it.

*******************************

Foggy got two days of peace. Matt made sure of it. He needed time to recover anyway – for the swelling to go down and to regroup from the shock. He went to confession before hearing Mass. “I can’t go out there if I can’t do anything.”

“I’m not saying you’re accomplishing nothing,” Lantom said. “Frankly I don’t have any sense of the scope of what you’re doing. But getting yourself killed accomplishes nothing.”

“Sitting around accomplishes nothing.”

“There are other ways to fight. You may have noticed; you are a lawyer,” Lantom said. “I know you don’t take these matters lightly. Maybe this group did you a favor by making that clear to you. The L-rd has a plan for you, Matthew. Do you believe that?”

“Yes.” But it was easier to say it than to feel confident about it.

“Pray to St. Michael for guidance.” Michael was Matthew’s patron saint. People usually assumed it was Lucy. Lantom went on, “And trust in G-d’s plan. If you strive to do good, you will find a way to do it without losing yourself. But it requires patience.”

“Okay,” Matthew said with resignation, and after he was done he took Communion for the first time since putting the suit back on.

His peace of mind, what little of it he had, didn’t last long. He went to work to find Foggy reading the paper. “What’s it say?” Matt could tell from the way Foggy’s heart was already racing when he came in the room that there was something upsetting in it.

“You’re just going to feel bad about something that’s not your fault.”

Matt set his cane in the corner and faced Foggy. “Are you going to make me turn on the radio?”

He heard Foggy fold the paper over. “They found a body in the Hudson. A kid. A little girl. Jane Doe. Asian, probably eight or nine.”

Human traffickers. “Where did they find her?”

“The rocks near Pier 83.” Not far from Hell’s Kitchen. Foggy had come to the same conclusion Matt had now.

“Do they know how she died?”

“Cause of death to be determined.” Foggy was distressed, but probably less about the body and more about how it would affect Matt. “She could have come from anywhere.”

“Yeah, that’s kind of the point,” Matt said.

“I mean, not necessarily Hell’s Kitchen. Don’t go assuming things.”

“I’ll assume whatever I want.” Matt walked into his office, instinctually dragging his finger against the doorframe. As Foggy followed, Matt said, “You can stop worrying. I’m not going to have a meltdown. I can’t stop every crime in the city.”

“I was just checking,” Foggy said. “And it is nice to hear you say that.”

What went unsaid was that neither of them thought he believed it.

*******************************

Forgetting about it was easier said than done, especially when Matt was cornered by Brett on the way back from lunch.

“Where the hell were you last night?”

“Um, in bed. At home.” Which was true, actually. “I think my Netflix account records and text log will prove that.”

Brett’s shoulders slumped. This was not the confrontation he wanted. “So you know nothing about this?”

“Presuming we’re not discussing my current client list, you’re going to have to be more specific.”

“The girl in the water. She was a little kid, Murdock.”

“Foggy told me about it,” Matt said. “It was the first I heard of it.”

“So you know nothing?”

Matt had to suppress a grim smile. “I don’t actually about know everything that’s going on in the city. Trust me, I wish I did. It would make both of our lives a lot easier.”

“But you might know something. Anything.”

“Presuming I had heard any rumors,” Matt continued, “which I don’t know why I would, but if I did, I would need some more information.”

“Shoot.”

This was bizarre, working with Brett, but he wasn’t willing to question it. They were both after the same thing. “Has anyone identified her?”

“No.”

“Can you get more specific than ‘Asian’?”

“Probably Southeast Asian. Thai or Laotian. But that’s just a guess.”

“Her final meal?”

“Okay, this is off the record,” Brett said, “but canned food, and not a lot of it. She was underweight.”

“Cause of death?”

“Trauma caused by a blunt weapon to the head. But she bled a lot before that. Ritual-like cuts. Nothing that would kill her. And she was held in captivity for a long time before that – she had cuts on her wrists and ankles and around her neck. Probably metal bindings. The coroner found rust in her wounds.”

His stomach turned. “Did she have a disability?”

“What?”

“Like blindness. Or being deaf. Or missing a limb. Something major.”

Brett’s stance grew more confident. “So you do know something.”

“I may have a theory,” he admitted. “But there’s no supporting evidence. Nothing you could follow-up on.”

“You didn’t see the body,” Brett said. “What have you got?”

Matt fiddled with his cane, scraping the pavement with it. “There’s a group of traffickers that tried to bring an undocumented boy into Hell’s Kitchen via cargo ship about three-and-a-half years ago. At the time, they were loosely associated with Wilson Fisk, but he only provided security. He didn’t know what it was. But anyone involved that in that is either dead or out of the country now.”

“Is the group still active?”

“They own a building on 53rd. Do you remember our client, Elena Cardenas?”

“Killed in a robbery.”

“You asked us to identify her body,” Matt said. “That tenement case was with Fisk. His company was fighting for control of the block so they could tear down the old apartments, but she wouldn’t sell. And she ended up dead.”

“I remember.”

“Fisk didn’t own the block for long – ownership passed to a Japanese business group that’s operating through a shell corporation,” Matt explained. “Those are the traffickers. I can’t say for sure they had something to do with that girl, but it wouldn’t be a bad avenue of investigation.”

Brett cursed. “I suppose you can’t back any of this up?”

“Trust me, I wish I could. They’re evil, they’re dangerous, but they’re probably not doing a thing you can find through normal procedure.”

Brett paused for a long time. There were several false starts before he found what he wanted to say. “If you find the guys who did this – you’ll tell me, right?”

“I’m a lawyer, Brett.”

“Right, right. But you will.”

“If I do somehow,” Matt said, “then yeah. I will. That’s a promise.”

Matt turned and started walking away, but Brett called out, “I suppose you don’t have to answer this, but are these the guys who ...? I mean, to you?”

“You’re right,” he said evenly. “I don’t have to answer that.”

He started walking again, and this time, Brett let him go.

*******************************

Matt made several attempts to enter the Spirit World over the next few days, but he was too unsettled. It was hard even when he wasn’t, but he still tried and failed. Since the church wasn’t available at his whim, he’d set up his own “calm” place in his home. He bought a screen and used it to close off a corner in his bedroom, in which he placed a meditation pad against the wall and in front of that, a small wooden table to serve as an altar. Instead of a Buddha like in the studio, he put a statue of the Virgin Mary, the golden crucifix that had belonged to his mother, and a container of incense. It took some adjustments over time – a bigger pillow, some sheets draped over the screen to make the air feel tighter and warmer, more distinct from the rest of his apartment, and he used his noise-cancelling headphones with a white noise loop programmed into his iPod – but he could eventually separate out the space in his mind as somewhere to go to be quiet and calm and block out the world.

Even though he couldn’t communicate with his Black Sky, when he was deep in mediation, he could at the very least delude himself into thinking he could feel it, but just in passing, like something on the wind inside him that he could never fully grasp. He had to put the girl out of his mind – whether she was one of them or not – and focus on his own threadbare connection to the Spirit World to enter it. When it finally happened, the sixth sense would snap into place and he was instantly aware of the new setting. He was on a plateau, mostly featureless, and what spirits were around were ignoring him, and he knew better than to disturb them. He felt the _tug_ – Izo was expecting him – and he let himself be pulled, a process he wasn’t particularly fond of, but it brought him to the World Tree and the air turtle behind it quickly, which was what he wanted. Also it made him a little nauseous.

Matt bowed politely to Izo but got right to the point. “The girl.”

Izo looked – well, as much as he could with no eyes – up at the points of light spiraling up and out in all directions above the tree. “Yes, I know. We didn’t get to her in time.”

“Who was she?”

“Her name was Anong,” Izo said. “Usually when the Hand takes a child so young, it’s to train them. Their Black Sky isn’t strong enough to be brought out and used until ten or eleven at the earliest. They have a compound for this. But they took her right to America.”

“The police said she had ritual cuts on her, but she hadn’t bled to death.” As if his stomach wasn’t disturbed enough.

Izo nodded. “They were trying to manipulate Black Sky’s connection to the Spirit World. If they’re trying to do what I suspect they’re trying to do, you won’t be able to stop them yourself.”

“There’s the Avengers.”

“I don’t know who that is,” Izo said. “And don’t worry. If they try again, we have our own resources.”

 


	19. OWL, Assembled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rushed post due to Jessica Jones. Maybe be some typos I didn't fix. 
> 
> Thank you Nahirr for offering to translate the upcoming Spanish dialogue, even it meant major spoilers.
> 
> I bet the rest of you (except for Zelofheda) can't guess the extra prompt I'm filling!

Matt let it sit. He hated letting things sit. He distracted himself with disrupting the cocaine trade in the area and he went to his day job. He told no one about his conversation with Izo except Foggy, because Foggy deserved to know everything. He’d more than earned it.

“You don’t bend the stone,” Matt told him as Foggy sat with clenched hands hovering just above the new pet rock collection on his desk. “You bend the energy inside the stone.”

“Oh, because _you’re_ an earthbending expert now,” Foggy said. “We can’t all have spirit kids with awesome tatts teaching us elemental magic. Or go to the Spirit World and hang out with ancient ninja masters and flying buffalo.”

“I do not _hang out_ in the Spirit World,” Matt said. “It’s hard to get to, actually. And I just learn vague things because I’m not cool enough to know specifics. Stick never told me specifics and now I know where he gets it.”

“Wow, you’ve had two teachers in a row who thought they could handle everything themselves. Now I know where _you_ get it.”

“I don’t see the Avengers out patrolling the city.”

“Last time they assembled in a city, it went up in the sky and almost destroyed the planet,” Foggy reminded him. “I don’t care if they got everyone out. I don’t want the city destroyed. It’s where I keep my stuff.”

Matt finally smiled. Foggy always succeeded at that. “Should we go?” They were in the office late, up with paperwork. Neither of them wanted to broach the subject of hiring a secretary, even if it would be a completely reasonable (and even necessary, with Matt’s handwriting) thing to do. “Actually, forget it. We’re about to have a visitor.”

“A client? At this hour?” Foggy pulled at his tie. “It’s creepy when you do that. Where is he? Outside the building?”

“Ha!” Stick said as he entered. “What do you think I am? And old man who can’t find his way up the stairs?”

Matt stood, shoring up his defenses. “What are you doing here?”

Stick tossed something on the desk. It sounded suspiciously like a wooden tile. “I’m tapping you.”

“I’ll see myself out before things get all ninja-y in here,” Foggy said. He moved to grab his coat from the rack, but Stick put a cane between him and his destination.

“Both of you,” he said. “I don’t go flashing that symbol around at just anybody.”

“We’re not actually members of the White Lotus,” Matt said. “Or, I don’t think we are.”

“Do you want to be?” Stick asked. “You know why I’m here.”

“They killed that girl.”

“And they’ll kill another kid if we don’t stop them tonight.”

“They have defenses. They’re ready for us.”

“This isn’t just our mission. It’s bigger than any of us. When a Grand Lotus puts out a call, you answer. Isn’t that right?” He turned his head – not precisely in the direction of the door, just in general – and Natasha entered and threw her tile on the table.

“Wait – you’re a member?” Foggy asked.

“No, but I want in,” she said.

“Stick tapped you?”

“Uh, no.” She gestured over her shoulder as one very recognizable man – even to Matt, especially with the shield he was just carrying around out of uniform – walked in. “He did.”

“Woah,” Foggy said. “Wait, how long have you been a White Lotus?”

Steve Rogers was probably smirking. “Since 1945. But there was a huge lapse in my attendance.”

“Yeah, you missed ’71,” Stick said. “That was fun. Stark spent the whole time bitching about how he hadn’t slept in two days and that was his excuse for being sloppy and taking a couple hits to the face.”

“Tony Stark?” Foggy asked.

“ _Howard_ Stark,” Natasha corrected. “I assume Tony’s not showing up.”

“Nah, we’re only waiting on one guy.” He sniffed the air. “And here he comes. Still never washes his suit.”

This time, there was a very hesitant knock on the door, and Foggy looked at Matt, then went to open it. “We’re closed.”

“Yeah, I’m not here for legal advice.” It was a middle-aged guy in a hoodie and a backpack. “I’m here for the uh, flower thing?”

Steve hit himself in the face. Stick just said, “You’re not Hank.”

“Oh, um, yeah. No, I’m not him. Hi, I’m Scott. Scott Lang. Ant-Man?” He looked around. “Oh crap. Are you guys the new Avengers?”

“I don’t know,” Steve said. “Are you the guy who broke into the Avengers compound and beat up Sam?”

“ _N-no!_ ” Scott said, very unconvincingly, and after a silence added, “And if I did – which I didn’t – it was to borrow something that was very necessary for superhero stuff, and would have been returned had it not, um, imploded with the building it was inside.”

“Where’s Hank?” Stick barked impatiently.

“Dr. Pym says the suit throws his back out,” Scott explained. “And he has this dentist appointment that’s had for like, ever, and he’s tired of rescheduling, so he sent me. So.” He straightened up. “What are we doing?”

“We’re going to break into a compound full of ninjas with machine guns and stop them from opening a portal to the Spirit World,” Stick explained with surprising specificity.

Scott paused for only the slightest moment and clapped his hands together. “All right. Frankly that’s not any weirder than fighting Hydra agents while riding a flying ant, so I’m on board. When do we start?”

*******************************

Stick had blueprints of the office complex. The heavy white lines against the blue sheets were enough for him; he ran his fingers across them, and so did Matt. Stick pointed to a circle in the center. “They cut a hole on three floors to make a vertical shaft.”

It did help that someone could read the attached materials. “It’s rock beneath it,” Natasha said.

“In Manhattan? That’s impossible,” Foggy said. “It’s all sewers and pipes. Unless they were bricking up any potential sewer access.”

“It’s going to be solid stone,” Stick said. “They need a direct connection to the bedrock of the island, as uninterrupted as possible. They found the biggest stone, cut it down to fit, and stuck it in there. The portal needs to draw on the planet’s energy to work.”

“And Spirit Portals are bad?” Steve said. “No one ever explained them to me. I was initiated and that was it.”

“There’s only one open, and there’s a reason it’s hidden,” Stick said. “The way these guys want to use it isn’t good. They’ll make sure they control everything that comes out – and spirits will try to enter our world, where they can be very easy to manipulate. This is what the Hand really wants – they want access to the Spirit World. Access they can control. Access they don’t need Black Skies for. And they’ll throw anyone on the pyre to make that happen. There’s only a few sensitive sites where they can try. They tried it in San Francisco in ’71, but we stopped them.”

“I can’t say I’m a big fan of portals these days,” Natasha said. “Is there any help on the other side?”

Stick shrugged. “They’re only projections of former members. They can’t cross over into our world. They’re emergency backup that we shouldn’t have to use. We stop Black Sky, we stop the ritual, no portal, we all go home.”

“What’s Black Sky?” Scott asked.

“It’s going to look like a kid, but it’s not. Stay away from it.”

“It is a kid,” Matt said. “I’m not going to let you kill it.”

Matt was serious, but Stick just cackled. “We’ll do what we need to do. But okay, no killing kids.”

“Well, I’m super thrilled that we had to clarify that,” Scott said, reasonably. “Is this an _evil_ secret society?”

“Captain America is in it,” Foggy said. “What do you think?”

“Hey, I’m standing right here,” Steve said.

“I know, and if you’re not pissed at me when this is over, I want your autograph,” Scott admitted. “So – you’re Captain America, you’re Black Widow, and the rest of you are – “

Foggy gestured to him and Matt, “We’re lawyers.” He swallowed. “Matt is a part-time ninja. I don’t know why _I’m_ here. I’m not driving any getaway car. This is Midtown. We’ll get stuck in traffic.”

“You’re an earthbender!” Stick protested.

“I’m not a good one!”

“Foggy, you beat me up with Captain America’s shield,” Matt said. “You’ll be okay.”

“Again, right here,” Steve said with a roll of his eyes. “So? What do we say?”

“Non-Avengers assemble?” Scott offered, and was forced to choke down another glare from Steve. “Hey, it was my first try. Let’s see you come up with something better.”

*******************************

Plan A was simple: Don’t let the Hand get Black Sky to the compound in the first place. Since they would use him (Stick was pretty sure it was going to be a him, some kid from Mexico) as soon as they got him, the very fact that the ritual hadn’t started meant Black Sky wasn’t yet on site. They would probably try shipping containers because they would be counting on both Stick and Matt – or at least Matt – staying away, as neither had yet to break their truce. And they weren’t expecting any Avengers, even in a non-Avenger capacity.

“He might look harmless, but he’s not,” Stick said of Black Sky. He didn’t go into any other specifics. “Don’t let him out of your sight, even if you think you’ve got him to a safe location. Bring him to me.”

“And if we don’t?” Steve said, picking up on Matt and Foggy’s tension over this plan.

Stick grinned. “Then you’ll find out yourself why he’s called the Bringer of Shadows.”

Plan B involved the compound itself. If Black Sky was stopped and removed, the ritual wouldn’t be able to continue and the Portal would close. If not, Stick would go through it and try to close it from the other side. Once again, he left the crew out of the loop as to how he would get back from there, only saying that he had done this before. “Don’t go through the portal. If you end up in the Spirit World, be nice to everyone and every _thing_. Someone will get you out who’s more experienced than you are.”

Matt got the distinct impression that Stick was intentionally looking in Foggy’s direction, and said, “No.”

“Um, I would actually like to help with this,” Foggy countered. “I have been to the Spirit World before and _I’m_ capable of making friends there. And yeah, before you say it, I know this is dangerous. But I’m not going to sit back and let you risk your life alone. Or with the Avengers. And Ant-man!”

“Woo!” Scott clenched his fist. “Thanks for counting me.”

“You might not be so excited when we actually go to fight these guys,” Natasha said.

“If we do it right, we won’t have to,” Stick reminded them. “So don’t fuck this up.”

“Yeah, last time they took out Iron Man in one hit,” Foggy said. “Hey wait. Didn’t _you_ do that?” He waved his finger at Stick.

“That’s why I said not to fuck up,” Stick replied unapologetically.

*******************************

They split into two teams. Stick, Steve, and Natasha would go for the freight container. Matt and Foggy would hang back near the compound while Scott infiltrated it to check on the proceedings.

“Stick might kill Black Sky,” Matt told Natasha before they geared up. “He says he only does it when it’s too late to save the kid, but I don’t know if that’s true.”

“How do we save the kid?”

“Cripple him,” Matt whispered.

“You mean, give him a disability, something major?”

Matt put on his cowl. He felt like he didn’t need to give Natasha any more information. She had enough to figure out on her own. “Yes.” And because Natasha was good at reading people, she didn’t ask anything else of him.

“Red’s gotten really popular,” Scott said when they gathered near the compound. “Okay, wait, that was a really stupid thing to say.”

“I know my suit is red,” Matt said.

“You’ve been _told_ your suit is red,” Foggy pointed out. “What he was trying to say is – “

“Yeah, his suit is also red, I figured that out from context.” Matt was more amused that Scott was so uncomfortable. He sounded like he looked ridiculous. “Does he look like an ant?”

“Actually he looks more like leather Iron Man. Whose suit is also red.”

“I know! That’s what I was saying. About the red,” Scott said. “I didn’t choose it. It’s Hank’s. I didn’t want to say anything to him, but it kind of smells like Ben Gay in here. Oh! And if my regulator gets screwed up and I shrink to an atomic level, tell my family I love them, and my ex-wife’s new husband that I kind of tolerate him.”

“I don’t have any family to inform,” Matt said.

“My mom wanted me to be a butcher. She’s who you should call,” Foggy added. “I wanted to be a lawyer. Now I do this apparently.”

“Which is?”

“Watch Matt get into trouble.”

“Hey!” But Matt really didn’t have a better retort than that. And he knew Foggy wouldn’t leave him, not when Black Sky was involved and Stick seemed to think Foggy would be good for something. And they were handed expensive, super-effective earpieces to communicate with each other, Avengers-style. It was good to have friends in high places.

“I’m keeping this,” Foggy told Stick before they headed out.

“Just don’t die,” Stick said. “I fuckin’ hate when people cry on my shoulder.”

“That was borderline sweet,” Matt admitted after they went in their different directions. “For Stick.”

“Then I don’t want to see him mean,” Scott said.

*******************************

Stick wasn’t wrong about the docks. There was a considerable build-up of private security guards, who served as a protective ring around the area to prevent bystanders from wandering in. The real Hand members in black suits were in the center, far away from prying eyes.

“Twelve,” Stick said as Natasha counted them herself through the binoculars. “No civilians. They’re armed. Handguns mostly. A couple of silencers. They don’t want to make a commotion.”

Steve opened his mouth and closed it before he asked Stick how he did what he did. Stick was a senior member and he was actually old, so he deserved respect. Also, he probably wasn’t wrong. Steve suggested, “We could disable them now.”

“They’ll redirect the shipment,” Stick said. “And we’ll have to do this all over again.” The boat was still too far out for him to sense.

Natasha had other equipment. “There’s a couple heat signatures in the blue container they’re getting ready to attach to the crane. One’s small enough to be a kid, but I can’t tell. Stark’s technology isn’t perfect.”

“Never was,” Stick said. “At least his dad didn’t almost destroy the planet.”

“Trust me, we’re on him about that,” Steve said.

Stick raised his hand for them to be silent and inhaled deeply through his nose. “It’s a Black Sky. The kid. But something’s wrong.” As they watched the crane move the container closer he look another deep breath. “The one they took in Mexico was a boy. This is a girl. And she’s weak. They’ve done something to her. She’s barely alive.”

“That’s all I need to hear,” Steve said, and leapt off the building. He was on the ground before the guards even noticed him.

“Shit,” Natasha said, scrambling after him. “Scott? Are you in?”

“Yeah.” Because Scott was some distance away from the action, his voice was more jovial. “I’m in the vents. Not much going on here. I’ve only seen a couple guards. Haven’t made it to the ritual location yet.”

They had guns, but Steve was still Captain America, and he made easy work of the guards and passed his shield to Natasha, and she knew what to do, and climbed up his back and spring-boarded up to the shipping container still hanging in the ear, using the shield to bash the door open. She had to drop the shield to get a hold on the edge. One of the guards inside stumbled forward to kick her off, but he was shot with an arrow and toppled right over the side.

The other guard ducked back inside. Then she heard a crackle over the comm-link. Stick’s voice was oddly shaky. “The kid. They just killed the kid.”

“Just now?” Steve shouted in disbelief as he punched a security guard into a wall.

“Yeah. They wouldn’t do that – they wouldn’t waste it. They can’t do the ritual unless – “

“ – they had a back-up,” Matt said over the comm. “Stick, it’s a trap! Get out!”

“No, no, they would never do this, they would never waste a – “

Natasha pulled herself up into the container and dodged a swing from a sword just in time. This guard wasn’t an ordinary hired hand. “I need some help here.” She only had moments to look at the child chained up to the wall – now without a head. “She’s dead.”

“Abort!” Steve commanded. “Guys, don’t do anything, we’re coming to you as soon as we – “

“I’m going in,” Matt said. “Stick, we’ll find the other kid. I promise.”

Natasha finally got her electric strike sticks out and disabled the ninja. She wanted to do more than disable him, but she wasn’t an assassin anymore. And she needed to get to Stick before he did something bad. “Shit.”

For once, Steve didn’t correct her language.

*******************************

“Matt, you can’t,” Foggy pleaded, even though he must have known it would be useless.

Matt didn’t bother to answer him. “Scott, get me an entrance that’s not the front, and do it fast.”

“Found the loading doors. One street up. I’ll disable the locks.”

“They’ll know we’re coming,” Foggy pointed out.

“They’d figure it out eventually,” Matt said. “If they don’t already know. Stay back, okay? These guys are serious.”

Foggy’s heart was racing and Matt knew he was torn. “Okay. But let me know – “

“If I need you, yes.”

They found the loading doors and signaled for Scott to open them. There was a very confused security guard on the other side, but what was a buzzing speck above him turned into a fully-grown man as Scott dropped his full weight on him. “The others are on the other side of the building.”

Matt stepped in and paused. “There’s people gathered in the basement. Four of them. There’s a ...” He focused all of his senses, shutting out the input he didn’t need. Foggy’s heartbeat. Scott’s breathing. The crackling in their earpieces. He pulled his earpiece out; he needed to concentrate. “There’s two of them. They have two Black Skies. I have to get to them.”

“I’ve got your back,” Scott said. His ability to change size at will and use that to propel himself around helped surprise the rest of the guards, and the two of them took them out with ease and descended to the basement.

The boy was there, wrapped in chains, a bag over his head. He was cold and shivering. He was terrified. Two guards watched him, but they were also flanking an older man behind them, who radiated a calm menace Matt hadn’t sensed since Fisk.

“Murdock,” the man said. His voice was heavily accented. Native Japanese speaker, wearing a silk uniform. It was probably red. The Hand wore red, too. “I was wondering when you would make an appearance.”

Matt took a precious second to focus on the man. He was old but not beyond fighting age. He was slightly overweight but most of it was muscle. Except for his right arm and right leg – they were plastic prosthetics. He was deformed, probably from birth.

An adult Black Sky. Working for the Hand.

“You let them kill that girl,” Matt said.

“Sacrifices have to be made. And what’s one more on the pile of innocents that Stick has killed without purpose?” he said. “Americans know all about killing innocents.”

Matt decided to let him drone on. It would buy time for the others to show up.

“My name is Junichi,” the ninja explained. “My parents were both from Nagasaki. They survived the initial blast but the radiation destroyed them. It was a slow death, over a great span of time. And during that time, I was born.” He stepped forward. He dragged slightly on the right, but Matt suspected that didn’t make him any less dangerous. “When you get to my age, you realize everyone has their own agenda. Izo wants to keep the Spirit World closed off to his exclusive club. I want it to be open again. Do you know why Black Skies are born? Because there’s no bridge. We’re too separated from the Spirit World, so when a spirit ventures too far into our worlds, they get lost and have to find a human host. Then they can never go back. But that doesn’t bother Izo. He uses his Black Sky to make himself powerful. He’s lived well beyond the years a human should live. He’s made himself not one but two armies in that time. And he wants to be the Avatar. You can’t even imagine how powerful that would make him.”

“But he doesn’t want to kill kids,” Matt said.

“You only believe that because he probably told you that,” Junichi said. “You don’t know him that well. I do.” He took another step, much closer to the kid, and whispered something in his ear that didn’t sound like any human language.

For the first time, Matt heard a real Black Sky as it burst out of the spiritual seams of the boy.

 


	20. Blackened Skies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I definitely forgot to mention that the events of Age of Ultron/Ant-Man happened a few chapters ago, which is why you saw Bruce still around in the beginning of the fic, and now you're seeing Scott Lang. Sorry about that.

The roar from Scott’s earpiece was so loud and sharp, Steve had to pull his own out. He’d climbed back up to Stick, who seemed strangely befuddled. All of his confidence was gone. “They wouldn’t have – it doesn’t make any sense – “

“Stick,” he said, “I’m Captain America, and I’m telling you we’re going to get the guys that did this.”

Stick stopped muttering to himself long enough to say, “I grew up with the radio show. You sounded different.”

“It was an actor.”

“I know _that_.” He’d already regained a little bit of the part of him that was an old codger. “Matt. We have to get to Matt.”

“Yeah, I know.” Steve offered an arm as Natasha made her way up. “We’ll fix this. I promise.”

*******************************

Foggy heard the inhuman howl and it shook him to his core. It was a noise he was not supposed to hear – that much he understood. And Matt was right nearby it, or at least Scott was. Did Matt really just expect him to stand outside, waiting for a call? He knew he couldn’t do that.

In the open entrance, one of the guards was getting up. “Sorry,” Foggy said as he hit him with his baseball bat and sprayed him with mace for good measure. “Sorry, sorry.” Man, he was not good at this. But he was going to find Matt.

*******************************

Matt’s first instinct was to protect Scott. Scott’s first instinct was to shrink himself, apparently, so Matt hit air (or possibly just smooshed Scott) when he hurled himself in front of him. “Go!” he managed to say before he hit the ground.

There was a reason the Black Sky was in chains. The spirit couldn’t fully separate from the boy’s body, but it was certainly trying, spilling out like water from every orifice and membrane. Since Scott was screaming hysterically and the two guards holding the chains from a distance were turned away, Matt assumed it wasn’t easy to look at, either.

He felt a tugging in his chest. Before he could process that it was his Black Sky, reacting in some fashion, Junichi blasted him with fire. Matt barely managed to bend the air around him in time to avert the flames. He hoped Scott hadn’t turned into a fried insect in the process.

So. Junichi was a firebender. And from his solid stance, likely an experienced one. He hurled bolt after bolt, but Matt quickly realized he was just trying to push him away from the center of the room, where there was a circle carved into the stone floor. The guards – also high level ninjas, no doubt – were dragging Black Sky by the chains into position over the stone. They secured him to the wall with hooks on both sides. One of them had a sword.

“No,” Matt said, but it was really more of a prayer. He couldn’t let them do this. “No, no, no.” But he needed to focus on preventing Junichi from starting a human BBQ, and he wasn’t could good enough to send the fire back at him, only disperse it with air.

It was a short sword, and the guard made a long cut, along the side of the boy’s neck, deep enough to draw blood but not deep enough to tear open his throat. The kid screamed. Black Sky screamed. They screamed together, but neither was strong enough to lash out at their attacker.

“Do you think I wanted it to come to this?” Junichi demanded. “I would have taken a willing volunteer. There are ways to do it without killing. But Izo won’t tell me how. I – “ He was interrupted by Scott, who reappeared in full size and kicked him in the side. His size-related powers were fairly impressive.

“Do not pull your mystic bullshit on us!” Scott shouted. He disappeared again, shrunken, and presumably went after one of the guards.

Matt didn’t have time to wait to find out. He had his opening, but he was exhausted from continuously airbending under extreme heat, and his body moved slower than he wanted it to. He only made it partially past Junichi, who was still on the floor, but lifted himself up with a fiery blast propelling him right into battle stance.

Until a stone came flying up from beneath Junichi and hit him on the head. Hard. He toppled.

“Yes!” Foggy shouted. “I’ve been trying to do that for like, five minutes! Oh crap, did I kill him?”

“He’s alive,” Matt said. “Foggy, get out of here.” Scott had only succeeded in taking out one of the guards, and the other was defending himself pretty ably. It was hard to think over all the screaming. “And don’t look at the Black Sky.”

And then he heard it. Or he felt it – the cracks appearing in the floor didn’t make much of a sound when they opened as blood crossed the carving, but he knew the hum of a portal. He just couldn’t _see_ it.

“Get the kid out of here,” Foggy said, maybe with more conviction than Matt had ever heard in his life. “I’ll close the portal.” He already had the rope tied around his waist. Stick said not to go into the portal, but Stick wasn’t there. Foggy had to be good for something. “Scott’ll pull me out. Or maybe the damn Avengers will finally show up.”

“Foggy – “ But he knew it was useless to contradict him. Matt was the only one who could go near Black Sky. “But he – “

“Do what you have to do,” Foggy said.

Matt knew what he had to do. “Okay.” He took out the second guard first, who couldn’t defend against Ant-Man and Matt at the same time. “Help Foggy,” he told Scott, and dove at Black Sky.

Matt entered a world of pain. For the first time, his own Black Sky was making its own opinions very known, and it did not like what was going on. The kid was dying. The Black Sky in it would kill him to get out, but it wasn’t strong enough. He was too young. G-d, he couldn’t have been more than seven or eight. He was screaming like a scared little kid, and Matt knew he couldn’t let that continue. Even though the touch was like fire, he grabbed the kid with one arm and cut the chains with the sword with the other, then picked him up and ran as far as he could.

The humming stopped. The boy was still bleeding, but not on the portal. But it didn’t close, either.

Matt didn’t have time to negotiate logistics with Foggy. He had to trust him. Because right now, this boy needed him more than anyone else in the world, so Matt carried him out of the room, and up the stairs to where the air was cooler, and laid him down on the cheap office carpet. He was still carrying the sword. The kid was thrashing and he couldn’t properly hold him down like this, so he set the sword down and removed his cowl. “Hey,” he said, his voice hoarse from breathing in hot air. “It’s going to be okay.”

The boy was mumbling between his screams. His pain was incomprehensible but his words Matt could somewhat make out. He was speaking in Spanish.

Right. The kid was from Mexico.

“Hey,” he repeated, grabbing the kid’s chin and forcing his face in the direction of Matt’s. “Sé que estás asustado. Sé que te duele. Voy a hacerlo parar. Lo prometo. Pero necesitas quedarte quieto.” ( _I know you’re scared. I know you’re in pain. I’m going to make it stop. I promise_. _But you need to stay still)_

Some part of the kid could understand that. Not the Black Sky part, but the human part, and he calmed down just enough to indicate that he could hear him.

“ _¿Cómo te llamas?_ ” ( _What’s your name?)_ Matt asked in Spanish.

“Juan,” the kid said. His voice was weak and removed from his own body. He could barely say it.

“Hola, Juan. Soy Matt.” ( _Hello, Juan. I’m Matt)_ He released his strong grip from the boy’s chin; he could tell he was hurting him. “Te voy a ayudar. Pero necesito hacer algo primero, y no va a ser divertido. Pero después te vas a sentir mejor. ¿Entiendes?” ( _I’m going to help you. But I need to do something first, and it’s not going to be fun. But then you’re going to get better. Do you understand?)_

Juan nodded. “ _Sí_.” But he didn’t sound like he believed him. Or he was in too much pain to really think about it.

“Está bien,” ( _Okay.)_ Matt said, picking up the sword. “Juan, ¿con qué mano escribes? _” (Juan, which hand do you write with?_ ”)

*******************************

“So is this what they were talking about, with the portal thing?”

“Yeah.” Foggy tied one end of the rope to the wall. This portal was much smaller, really just cracks in the ground, and he wasn’t sure he could even jump through it.

“You want me to go in with you?”

He shook his head. “Watch the rope. Three times, pull me out.” Without offering further instruction, he grabbed his nose out of habit for jumping into mysterious things and leapt into the portal.

*******************************

The incident at the docks had attracted some attention, but by the time the cops arrived, the White Lotus crew was gone. Stick was persuaded out of taking the girl’s body (and getting his DNA all over it, as Natasha pointed out) and they had to make time to get to the compound.

Stick abandoned all pretenses of having nothing extraordinary about him and started leaping from roof to roof as if he weighed little more than nothing, leaving gusts of air in his tracks. Steve followed him because he was Steve Rogers, and Natasha sighed. “I should have brought the bike.”

They made it to the roof of the compound in time to hear the unholy howling that had nearly deafened them all over their mics, only to have it stop a few seconds later. Stick smiled. “Good for him.”

“What?” Steve asked.

“It’s complicated,” he said. “Matt’s on the ground floor, but he’ll be okay. The portal’s open in the basement. That, we have to close.”

“From which end?”

Stick frowned. “We’ll see.”

*******************************

Foggy’s vision was blank for a moment before he realized his eyes were closed for no reason. He landed on the ground in a clearing deep in a forest. The trees probably talked or whatever. The sky was a deep purple. He tugged on the rope once to check that it was there to lead him back, then looked around.

He should have done that first.

No less than six people were facing him. They were all outfitted in blue uniforms with wide white collars embroidered with the petals of a lotus. Almost all of them were old and of some kind of Asian descent, except for a pale woman with long hair. He recognized Izo in the center. They were all in various combat stances, and he belatedly shoved his hand into his pocket and pulled out the white lotus tile. “I’m friendly! Look, I’ve got a tile!”

“I can vouch for the kid,” said King Bumi, who smiled his crooked smile. “So, how’s the earthbending going?”

“First, you totally could have told me about that. Second, uh, this might not be the time.” Though it wasn’t like he could get here all the time like Matt could. “This firebender named Junichi opened this portal. How do we close it?”

“All of us are either spirits or projections of people whose physical bodies are in the material world,” Izo explained. “I’m in Japan. Inna is in Siberia.” He gestured to the white woman, who nodded to Foggy. “We need a Black Sky to close it on this side.”

“Matt’s busy,” he said. “Can Stick do it?”

“He can’t earthbend. He can only stop the spiritual flow.” It was hard to tell, but Izo was kind of giving him an expectant look.

“Hey, I’ve had precisely ten seconds of lessons,” Foggy said. “And I didn’t even know I was supposed to be paying attention.”

Bumi tugged at his goatee and said, “Then I guess we’re going to have to make up for that very quickly.”

*******************************

Stick had already arrived at the compound when Steve and Natasha got there. “Matt’s in there,” he pointed. “He needs help. He’s probably freaking out. Captain, with me.”

Natasha wasn’t sure of the hierarchy but she darted off in the given direction to find Matt standing in an empty office room, holding a young boy. They were both covered in blood. It took him a second to notice Natasha’s presence. “Do you have anything to cauterize a wound?”

She pulled out one of her electric sticks. It had a fire setting. “We can take him to the Tower.”

“Too far. He’s lost too much blood. Metro General is much closer.” He rested the unconscious boy’s head on his shoulder, exposing the fleshy end of his elbow where the rest of the limb was gone. “Hurry.”

When Natasha singed the flesh – which didn’t smell great – both the boy and Matt cringed together, but it didn’t take much. Fire worked fast. “You can’t just walk in there with him. They’ll think you did it.” Matt had no response and Natasha continued, “Okay, let me go ahead to the hospital and disable the security cameras.”

 

“Thank you.” But Matt was more interested in dealing with the kid than her, though he did stop long enough to put his cowl back on. He could move very fast when he wanted to, almost fast enough for Natasha to keep up, despite keeping a very tight and careful hold on the kid. At the hospital, he barely waited for her to use a tight EMP on each camera and roll out a stretcher from the ER before he leapt down from the roof and set the boy gently on the stretcher and said something in Spanish. Then he pushed the rolling stretcher inside. He could airbend it in pretty far. “Okay, I have to go get Foggy and change out of this suit.”

“Stick and Steve are with him,” Natasha said. She wanted to go in, but she could be recognized. Like Matt, she needed to change outfits. “I think he’ll be okay.”

Matt grunted nervously and disappeared up the fire escape. Man, she really needed to learn airbending.

*******************************

Stick and Steve reached the portal room and Stick cursed. “Well, fuck it all.”

Junichi rose to his feet, still bleeding from his head wound. “Are you going to call me a traitor to my race?”

“I never really figured out what ‘race’ is,” Stick said. “I’m sure someone else would be happy to tell you.” And with that, he shoved him into the portal, striking him on the head on his way down.

They heard someone call out “Ow!” in a familiar voice and Scott un-shrunk himself long enough to start tugging on the rope that led into the Spirit World. The three of them pulled up Foggy, who climbed out himself the rest of the way. “Is Matt okay?”

“Yeah, he’s with Natasha,” Steve said. “Are you okay?”

Foggy caught his breath. “Yeah, I um – I have to close the portal. Stick and I do.”

“You think you can handle it, kid?” Stick said.

Foggy nodded. “I just nodded. But if you go in and I close it – “

Stick shrugged. “I love Japan. Plenty of people want to kill me there, so it’ll be interesting. See you on the flip side, kid.” He waved to the others. Or in the general direction of the others. “That’s what people say, right?” And without hesitation, he leapt down through the portal, into the Spirit World.

“What was he talking about?” Scott asked.

“The other opening’s in Japan,” Foggy explained. “He has to go out that way.”

“What if he gets stuck?”

“I don’t know,” Foggy said. He removed his socks and shoes as he watched the light from the portal flicker in and out. He tried to feel the whole floor, which was mostly cement, through his skin. It was harder than it sounded. “Okay.” He could do this. Stick was counting on him. Matt was counting him. The Avengers were counting on him. And, uh, Ant-man.

He put one foot on the part of the stone they had sunk into the ground for the portal and imagined the seam in the stone where the portal had forced it open. He drew a long breath and pressed down with both hands over the seam, shoving it together and sealing the stone anew. The stone moved with his hands, but not because he was shoving them together with muscle strength. He probably could do more – reshape the stone as he pleased, raise it in the air – but he sensed he shouldn’t. He should let that power flow out of him for the moment and recuperate. Find Matt.

“Good job, kid,” Steve Rogers put a hand on his shoulder. Steve fucking Rogers.

“You’re coming to my nephew’s birthday,” he said. Why was he so tired? “You don’t have to come in costume but you have to bring the shield.”

“Trust me, you don’t want to disappoint kids on their birthdays,” Scott pitched in. “What should we do with the other guys?” He gestured to the unconscious Hand members.

“This isn’t an Avengers mission,” Steve said. “We leave it to the real cops. They won’t believe anything these guys say anyway.”

Foggy’s phone buzzed. It was heavy in his hand. Matt had texted, _Are you okay?_

Foggy just rang him instead. “Hey. Portal’s closed. Everyone’s okay. We’ve gotta check out before the cops show.”

“Can you go to Metro General and find Juan? The um – “ He didn’t want to say ‘Black Sky’ over the phone. “He doesn’t speak English. Say you’re an immigration lawyer. Just stay with him until I get there.”

Actually what he wanted to do was sleep for twenty hours, but of course he would do it. “Yeah. I’m on it.”

“If Claire’s working, try to track her down. Thanks.” Matt didn’t waste any time on the phone. He sounded distressed, but not injured. And even if he was injured, he wouldn’t listen to reason.

What would happen now? He assumed Stick would have taken the kid, but he wasn’t sure Matt even wanted that to happen. “I need to go to the hospital,” he told Steve and Scott. “Does the White Lotus have a plan for Black Sky?”

“I’ve been here all night and I’m still not sure what Black Sky is,” Steve admitted. “Stick was this mission’s leader.”

Foggy nodded. “Matt’ll figure it out.” He hoped to G-d he would.

Steve and Scott dropped him off at the hospital entrance. He supposed it would look odd if one guy in a retro space suit-type thing and Steve Rogers out of uniform walked in the front doors. He stumbled at the front desk, realizing he had almost no information and about who he was looking for, and asked for Claire instead. He didn’t know what she knew about Black Sky – probably next to nothing – but between his vague description and the number of half-dressed, bleeding kids who had been mysteriously dropped off at the ER in the last hour, they were able to locate Juan, who was sedated and being stitched up. Foggy muttered some things about immigration and being a lawyer, but he could only get so far without knowing a damn thing about the kid other than his name. He didn’t speak Spanish, but the kid was sleeping anyway. Technically his medical condition was confidential until a relative or guardian could be located, but Foggy could easily see at least part of the damage – Juan was missing all of his right arm below the elbow.

He also wasn’t a screaming demon, so Foggy put two and two together. “Christ.”

“What happened to him?” Claire didn’t ask how he knew.

“It’s complicated,” because he was not going to be the one to explain this to her. If it was explained at all. “Will he be okay?”

“There’s not a lot of internal damage, so yes,” she said. “Who is he?”

“Matt’ll know more,” he said. “He told me to wait with him.”

Claire rolled her eyes at this particular brand of bullshit, but Foggy had nothing to offer her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note: Due to Thanksgiving, the next chapter might be a little bit late. The good news is that since I've still got like 9000 words to go on NaNoWriMo despite having completed an eBook AND my Secret Santa assignment, so I started writing a little follow-up to this story, which covers some assorted things that happen after. If you have something you'd like to see, leave it in the comments and I'll think about it.


	21. A Man Walks into a Door

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to thank Nahirr for all of the translations! She did on very short notice, too. It was a huge hassle to edit in, but I felt that it gave the scenes some authenticity, like Juan's ethnicity and the cultural barriers were not just an afterthought.

Matt thought the blood would never come off.

Removing his armor was downright painful. Some of it had melted in the heat of Junichi’s firebending, reshaping it and searing into his skin. He lost a few layers of flesh in the process, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except that he smelled of blood that wasn’t his, and it was everywhere. The shower hurt but he was sobbing too hard to scream. He didn’t know when the tears had started, or why, because at first it was just more wetness on his face, but eventually his legs gave out and he sat down on the floor of the bathtub, letting the spray hit his head and strike his back like needles in his flesh. The pain felt good. It felt like what he deserved.

There wasn’t time to feel sorry for himself. He knew that. He rubbed his skin with the towel until it was raw again and put bandages on to cover it and his suit on to look like a lawyer. He felt dirty in it.

It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Only Juan mattered.

Normally hospitals were supremely unpleasant mazes for him, but he tore through Metro General without any help, startling the security guards, and demanded to see Juan. He shook impatiently through the ten minutes for them to figure out that he’d been moved up to Pediatrics. When he got to that floor, he just followed Foggy’s scent like a bloodhound.

“Matt – “ Foggy rose from his chair but Matt ignored him for the moment. Juan was okay. He was at resting heartrate. Matt could smell the antiseptics from where they’d cleaned and stitched his wounds, and the cream they’d used on the burns. His right elbow was wrapped in bandages. His Black Sky was there, but it was dimmed, muted, like Stick’s or his own.

“He’s okay. He’s okay.” Foggy had to say that a couple times before Matt came unfrozen and realized he was being spoken to. “You look like shit, Matt.”

“I’m fine.” He flinched. “The suit’s not that fireproof. I’ll be fine.” He took the nearest seat and pulled it right up to the bed. “Thank you for staying with him.”

“When Stick comes back, is he going to – “

“No,” Matt said. “I’m not going to let him.”

“Do we know anything about him?”

“I think he only speaks Spanish.”

Foggy sounded tired. “The police are going to get wind of this. You can’t just drop a kid off at a hospital without some follow-up questions. He’s an undocumented immigrant.”

“Marci’s focus was immigration law for a little while,” Matt said. It was really hard to concentrate, but he managed. He put his hand over Juan’s intact left hand without making actual contact. It was so small under his that he didn’t really have to and he didn’t want to disturb him. “When we figure out where he’s from, if he can’t go back or doesn’t want to go back, we can apply for asylum. Just from his injuries, he has a good case.” Foggy was glaring at him. Matt could sense it. He shifted in his seat. “It was better than blinding him.”

“Okay.” That was the sound of Foggy accepting reality.

“Thanks,” Matt said, because he really did appreciate it.

“Are you going to beat yourself up over this?”

Matt shook his head. “I promised him I was going to take care of him, so that’s what I’m going to do.”

Foggy had no energy for more questions. Neither of them did.

*******************************

Matt closed his eyes, but he did not sleep. While the rest of the world dimmed to his senses, he remained painfully aware of every beat of Juan’s heart. He was so young – younger than Matt had been, when he was blinded – and he sounded so innocent, even when he had been screaming in tune with a demon, begging the world to make it stop. To say nothing of what he’d already been through on his way to New York. The girl Black Sky, the one from Laos, had been abused and starved in a shipping container. Juan must have been, too. Matt could smell the salt and rust in the wounds around his wrists and ankles, and still taste the iron of chains where they had bit into the boy’s skin. Of course the police would investigate. It would get them nowhere, but they would try.

He was so far gone that he needed Brett’s voice to bring him to attention. “Hey Matt.”

“Brett.” He was startled out of his place, and pulled his hand back from Juan’s. “Are you here in a professional capacity?” He could smell Brett’s sidearm, and hear the chink of the items on his uniform, but it was hard to tell.

“If I asked you some procedural questions, would you answer them?”

“Whatever the nurse told you is precisely what I know. More, maybe. I can’t read the chart.” He meant aside from the point that it was unethical.

Brett’s shoulder slumped as he weighed his options. “And if I asked you why you’re here?”

“Surely you could understand why I would be sympathetic to someone without parents who’d recently been disabled in an accident.”

“G-d damnit.” Brett stomped on the ground. “I heard Captain America was sighted around that office building you told me about.”

Matt shrugged.

“You promised you would tell me. If you know something about the traffickers.”

“The ones who killed that girl.”

“They found another one on the docks. So what the hell is this about, Murdock?”

Brett deserved an answer. Not a good one, but one that would satisfy his natural concern. “I did promise you that. So, yeah, I heard someone took care of them.”

“This are the same people who – “

“Yes.”

“And they took yo – “

Matt bit his lip. “Yes.”

Brett took the hint to stop asking questions. At least for the time being. Matt’s nerves were frayed, and it was showing in his voice. But Brett was a friend, and at the moment, he was trying to be a good one by not turning Matt in. In fact, he would probably protect him.

“You’re doing a good job,” Matt said. “Protecting and serving. If you investigate, you might be able to find out where that kid you found tonight on the docks came from. You might be able to find her family. If I have any capacity to help you with that, I will.”

Brett nodded. “And the boy?”

“His name is Juan. I don’t know anything else about him, but I’m working on it.”

“Officers will come back in the morning, take his fingerprints, interview him when he’s ready.”

“Yeah.” Matt swallowed. He couldn’t quite manage in his head how to keep all of these informational channels, if they worked at all, separate. “That would be great.”

“And you’ll give me whatever you have.”

“We all want to help him.”

Brett was convinced – for the time being. “You look like you might want to see a doctor yourself.”

“Yeah, I fell down some stairs,” he said, even though he wasn’t bruised but burned. “Into a door.”

Brett actually chuckled. “Get some rest, Murdock.”

“Same to you, Officer.”

*******************************

Matt actually slept – he was pretty sure, anyway – sitting up in the chair, to be startled awake with a metallic taste in his mouth and his shoulders and face aching from untreated burns to the slight shift of Juan under the blanket as he woke. He was gasping in pain.

“Está bien. Está bien. El Black Sky no está más _.” (It’s okay. It’s okay. Black Sky is gone_ ) He hit the button for the nurse. “No está mas, ¿está bien? Está dormido. No va a volver.“ ( _It’s gone, okay? It’s asleep. It’s not coming back_ )

Juan didn’t calm down, understandably, until the nurse gave him a dose of morphine. While she was at it, she changed the blood bag and took his temperature, but she only spoke broken Spanish and Juan didn’t want to talk to her.

As soon as she was gone, Matt lifted the glasses off his face. “¿Me recuerdas? Soy Matt.” _(Do you remember me? I’m Matt_ )

Juan nodded. “Tú hiciste que se detuviera.” ( _You made it stop_ )

Relieved, Matt put a hand on Juan’s arm, and he didn’t flinch. “Lamento lo de tu brazo. Los hombres que te secuestraron... ¿te dijeron lo que es un Black Sky?” _(I’m sorry about your arm. The men who took you – did they tell you what Black Sky is?_ )

“No me dijeron nada. Vinieron a la ciudad y le dispararon a todo el mundo. Pensé que eran narcotraficantes." ( _They didn’t tell me anything. They came into town and shot everyone. I thought they were narcos_.)

It wasn’t unexpected, but it wasn’t good to hear. “No me dijeron nada. Vinieron a la ciudad y le dispararon a todo el mundo. Pensé que eran narcotraficantes.” ( _They were after you. They weren’t after drugs_ )

“ _The priest said I was possessed. He tried to perform an exorcism, but it didn’t work. So they said they were going to get a Spanish priest, but he didn’t show_.” (El sacerdote dijo que estaba poseído. Trató de realizar un exorcismo, pero no funcionó. Así que dijeron que iban a conseguir a un sacerdote español, pero no fue.)

“Un Black Sky no es un demonio,” ( _Black Sky isn’t a demon_ ) Matt said. “Un Black Sky es un espíritu que nació dentro del cuerpo de un humano. Está solo y asustado, así que hace cosas que asuntan. Pero es parte de ti. Y no puede usar tu brazo a menos que estés saludable. Si no lo estás, se va a dormir. Como por ejemplo, si te falta un brazom o una pierna, – “( _Black Sky is a spirit that’s born inside a human body. It’s alone and it’s scared, so it does scary things. But it’s a part of you. And it can’t use your body unless you are healthy. If you’re not, it goes to sleep. Like if you are missing an arm, or a leg, or_ ) he pointed to his face, “ – si eres ciego, como yo _.” (or you’re blind, like me_ )

“¿Tu eres...?” ( _You are ...?)_ he was too scared to finish the sentence.

“Sí.” (Yes) Stick had told him never to let anyone do this, but he hoped it would work anyway. Matt took Juan’s hand and pressed it against his chest. “No te puede lartimar. No puede lastimar a nadie.“ ( _It can’t hurt you. It can’t hurt anyone_ )

He inhaled and focused like he did when he was trying to fill himself into the Spirit World, when he tugged on that thread that was so hard to find. It didn’t come instantaneously, but he was surprised at how quickly his Black Sky jumped up to the surface, active and aware and eager to communicate even if it couldn’t form words. Matt wasn’t quite sure what was happening to him – his thoughts were too intermingled with Black Sky’s feelings and it took away his ability to speak. He knew his mouth was hanging open, and Juan was touching a part of him that had rarely been touched, but this time it wasn’t invasive. It wasn’t bad. The hurt was the pain he felt over what he’d had to do, and how it left this innocent boy, who could never be repaired. All of his guilt was exposed, and he couldn’t make out how much of it Juan was aware of, but one thing that flowed out cleanly and clearly was that his Black Sky _loved_ Juan and he was never, ever going to let him go, not if he could help it.

Matt was grateful when Juan pulled away of his own volition, and that tidal wave of feelings came to a crash. He was exhausted from the connection, but all the same he and Juan moved in together and hugged each other harder than either of them should have with their wounds, which suddenly didn’t hurt.

“Lo lamento _._ ,” ( _I’m sorry)_ he said, speaking into the hair on the top of Juan’s head. He wondered what color it was. “Lamento haberte hechoe esto _._ ” ( _I’m so sorry I did this to you_ )

But Juan didn’t want him to apologize. Maybe he didn’t understand, because it was all too big for a little kid, but his entire response between tears was, “Por favor no me dejes _.” (Please don’t leave me_ )

“Lo prometo,” ( _I promise you)_ Matt said, “No te dejaré _.” (I won’t_ )

*******************************

Matt was still awake when the morning shift started and the doctors sent Juan in for more X-Rays and a CATscan to look for internal damage. Matt walked with Juan on the stretcher as far as they would let him go, and was waiting when they came out. When the police arrived, they discussed the diagnosis with the doctor. Juan had been held captive and abused for some period of time, and he had burn marks and bone bruises that were older. He was lucky he had a common blood type because he’d lost most of his blood, but he would bounce back from that. Whoever had cauterized the wound before his arrival probably saved his life.

They brought a translator to speak directly to Juan, who spoke no English. She was a very nice woman from the hospital and Juan was able to answer most of their questions. His last name was Diaz – an unfortunately common name – and he was from a small town in Mexico. When asked about his older scars, he said that his family thought he was possessed and the church had done it to him, but they didn’t go too deep into what had happened abroad. He told them about the attack by the traffickers and how he was taken, but he couldn’t provide much information on their identities because none of them spoke Spanish or even tried to communicate with him. He knew they weren’t white or Hispanic but not that they were Japanese until he was told. As for his new injuries, the cuts on his neck and side, and the amputation, all he remembered and was being in pain and then he woke up in the hospital. He couldn’t identify his attackers. Matt hadn’t told him to say this. The kid was just smart.

No one told Matt to leave after a hesitant first attempt, which ended when he stood his ground as both a lawyer and the only one Juan clearly wanted around and identified as such. Needing to stay on his toes, legally, was about the only thing keeping Matt awake, and he was very grateful when Natasha showed up in the afternoon to push him out.

“I know you want him off the SHIELD grid,” Natasha said, “but I’ve got other resources to find his family, if he has any left. The Avengers could expedite asylum, but that would be hard to keep under the radar.”

“We’ll have it as a backup,” he said. “Thanks.”

“You need to go home, Matt. Or see a doctor. Or both.”

“Someone needs to stay with him,” he said. “All the time, until I get back. And I mean _all the time_.”

“Stick will need some time to get back from Japan.”

“Stick’s not the only person I’m worried about.”

“Steve offered to help, but he’s Steve, so ...” He’d be recognized, she meant. “And his absence from the Avengers base would be a little more noticeable. He has less on his social schedule. And Scott went back to California.”

Matt nodded. “Thank you. For everything.”

She put a hand on his shoulder. It was hard not to flinch because of his burns, but he managed. “Just get some rest.”

*******************************

Matt only managed to sleep for a few hours, being too restless to do otherwise. When he checked his phone he found a number of complex messages from Foggy, who told him to meet him at Marci’s apartment.

Marci lived on the Upper East Side. Matt felt surreal stepping into a fashionable, well-maintained apartment lived in by a normal person with a normal life. He was painfully aware that less than a day before he’d been on the brink of being roasted to death or losing Juan from blood loss. Now he couldn’t imagine his life without him.

“Earth to Matt.” Marci snapped her fingers impatiently when he spaced out over a plate of take-out Indian food. “Free legal advice doesn’t come cheap.”

“Sounds like it does.”

“Let’s just say I’m not paying with money,” Foggy said, and didn’t give Matt time to form a response, even if he’d wanted to. “So. We might have something.”

“But we have to move quickly,” Marci said. “Since Juan’s under sixteen, the normal route for him is to end up in a shelter under the auspices of the Office of Refugee Resettlement. Then he would have a number of weeks or months until he was deported back to his home country. But he didn’t enter the country through a border crossing. There’s plenty of police evidence of this being a trafficking case, which means he has a stronger case for asylum. While that case is in process, he can stay in the country. That’s hurdle one.”

“And two?”

“Child Protective Services,” Marci said. “I take it you’re familiar with them?”

“Unfortunately.” He picked at his food. He should have been hungry, but he wasn’t. “He can’t fall into that system. If he goes into foster care, he’ll never get out. Nobody wants the kid with a handicap.”

“Yeah, a Spanish-language group home is the best he can hope for. The _best_. Unless – “

“Adoption.”

Marci had hesitated for a reason. “Right. So, if you put yourself up as a foster parent with the intention of adopting him, he can get on the path to citizenship. But first you have to prove that both his parents are dead or that they are willing to waive their parental rights. And then you have to submit an application. And Matt, seriously – no offense – but you’re going to have a weak application.”

“The foster system is overrun. How am I weak?”

“You know why.” Marci wasn’t sparing him anything, not that he expected or wanted her to. “You’re single, you have no family support system, you’re barely above water financially, your native language isn’t Spanish, you have no experience in childcare, and, _duh_ , you’re blind.”

“That’s discrimination.”

Marci shrugged. “How are you going to read the instructions on labels? How are you going to help him with his homework? How are you going to get him somewhere without the ability to drive? These are reasonable questions to ask. They’re not fair, but they’re reasonable.” She softened. She must have seen his expression. “Look, we’ll do our best. We find the right person and they might see it our way. People don’t work in social services for the money, certainly.”

Matt smiled to show that he was hopeful, or was trying to be in front of Marci, but inside, his stomach was churning.

*******************************

Matt spent another uneasy night in the hospital. Foggy offered to sub in for him, but instead Matt accepted a promise to be relieved first thing in the morning after the doctor’s visit. Juan was still looking a little drugged but he devoured the hospital food, even though he said it tasted terrible, and while the nurse was checking his blood pressure Matt stepped out to the vending machine to buy him some candy.

“¿Tienes un trabajo o solo luchas con personas?“ ( _Do you have a job, or do you just fight people?_ )

“Soy un abogado _.” (I’m a lawyer_ )

“¿Qué haces?” ( _What do you do?)_

“Defiendo a personas en la corte cuando se las acusa de un crimen _.” (I defend people in court when they’re accused of a crime_ )

“¿Cómo haces eso si no puedes ver?“ ( _How do you do that when you can’t see_?)

“Tengo una computadora y libros especiales _,” (I have a computer and I have special books_ ) he explained. “También tengo un compañero. Lo conociste. Foggy. Él hace algunas cosas por mí _.” (I also have a partner. You met him. Foggy. He does some things for me_ )

“¿Estás casado? _”_ ( _Are you married_?)

“No.” _(No_ )

“¿Por qué no?” ( _Why not?)_

Matt chuckled. “No he conocido a nadie con quien quiera casarme _.” (I haven’t met anyone I want to marry_ )

“¿Tienes familia aquí?” ( _Do you have family here?)_

“Mi padre murió cuando era joven _,” (My father died when I was young_ ) Matt said. “Mi madre se fue cuando era un bebé. Así que soy huérfano _._ ” ( _My mother left when I was a baby. So I’m an orphan)_

“Como yo _.” (Like me_ ) It wasn’t clear how Juan was processing seeing his parents’ deaths, if he’d seen them with his own eyes or just heard them. So far, no one had asked. The doctor thought he was probably in shock, and discussed trauma therapy, and was relieved when Matt said he was very familiar with the concept.

“Sí. Como tú.“ ( _Yes. Like you_ ) He ran his fingers through Juan’s hair. It was on the long side. Juan didn’t like being touched by anyone else; the temperature and blood pressure check every four hours was a trial. “Unas personas van a venir a hablar contigo. Son de inmigraciones. Te van a preguntar de dónde eres, si tienes algún familiar con quien vivir, y si quieres volver a México _.” (Some people are going to come talk to you. They’re from immigration. They’re going to ask where you’re from, if you have any family members to live with, and if you want to go back to Mexico_ )

“¿Qué les digo?” ( _What do I tell them?)_

“¿Qué quieres?” ( _What do you want?)_

Juan said it but Matt already knew the answer. “Quiero quedarme contigo _.” (I want to stay with you_ )

“Entonces diles eso. Pero no puedes decirles sobre Black Sky, ¿está bien? No puedes decirle a nadie sobre eso, excepto a Foggy y otros Black Sky _.” (Then tell them that. But you can’t tell them about Black Sky, okay? You can never tell anyone about that except Foggy and other Black Skies_ )

Juan didn’t need that explained to him. “Los sarcerdotes dijeron que era un demonio _.” (The priests said it was a demon_ )

“Mi sacerdote no cree eso _.” (My priest doesn’t believe that_ ) Of course, Father Lantom believed precisely what Matt told him, so it was a little bit of a lie. “No cree en los exorcismo _.” (He doesn’t believe in exorcisms_ )

“¿Tienes un sacerdote?” ( _You have a priest?)_

“Por supuesto.” ( _Of course)_ He wondered what Juan thought of Americans. “Voy a la iglesia. Escucho las Misas. Quería ser un sacerdote cuando era un niño _.” (I go to church. I hear Mass. I wanted to be a priest when I was a little kid_ )

“¿Qué pasó?” ( _What happened?)_

“Una niña me besó, y decisió que no quería ser un sacerdote _.” (I got kissed by a girl, decided I didn’t want to be a priest_ )

Juan laughed, and Matt decided it was the greatest sound he’d ever heard.

*******************************

Claire stopped by in one very early morning when her shift was over, long after Juan was asleep. “How’s he doing?”

“He’s one brave kid.” Matt didn’t remember being so resilient after his own accident. “Will you write me a recommendation?”

“For what?”

“Foster care.”

Claire gave one of her very pained sighs. “You don’t me to say what I’m going to say.”

“You don’t think I would be a good parent?”

“You can barely take care of yourself, Matt.” She poked ever-so-gently at his still-untreated neck burn. “A kid is a big responsibility. You’re going to have to give up at least one of your jobs and you’re not going to like which one it’s going to be.”

“Claire, he - ,” Matt fidgeted with his cane and lowered his voice further. “He’s not going to be adopted. He’ll go to a group home, and that’s if he’s not sent to a detention center in Arizona in the first place, and he’ll be stuck there until he’s eighteen. Even well-meaning white couples who want to save the world draw the line at the handicapped.”

“That’s not – “

“I _know_ it’s true,” Matt said. Claire couldn’t deny his authority on this. “Look, maybe I don’t have a lot of parental experience, but nobody’s truly ready to be a parent unless they are, right? Isn’t that what people say? And you’re right, it’ll keep me off the streets at night – which will be good for both of us.”

Claire shifted her weight around, the particular way she did when she was working herself up to something. “You’re really serious about this.”

“Would I ask you if I wasn’t?”

“Send me the paperwork,” she said. “But I’m going to have to lie a little.”

“We call that embellishing the truth.”

“Don’t try to impress me with your fancy legal terms,” Claire said.

Foggy appeared promptly at 8 am. “Go home.”

“Do we have clients?” He honestly didn’t know at this point.

“They don’t matter. _Go_.” Foggy nearly pushed him out the door. “And don’t come back until you’ve slept.”

Foggy may have had a point. It was a short walk home, but Matt was so tired he was barely coordinated enough to hear and make sense of all of the smells and sounds of people rushing to work or school, and relied on his cane more than normal. He was almost to his front door before he noticed Natasha following him. The artificial smell of her new wig was the first giveaway. “Following me?”

“I’m not the only one.” She pointed up. Was there someone on the roofs? He hadn’t been extending his senses that far. He usually ignored rooftops unless he was actively using them.

“Well, I am blind,” he said with a smile and opened the front door for her. By the time they were in the elevator, he could hear the heartbeat in his apartment. It wasn’t moving around, so maybe that was a good sign.

When he unlocked his door, Natasha took the incentive to go in first, which was not to her advantage. She was hit with a spray of water that knocked her against the wall, then quickly hardened into ice, trapping her there. Matt hurled his cane at their attacker, but she caught it with her other arm. Made of water.

“I want to talk,” the woman said. Her accent was strange – Japanese and something else. “Alone.”

“Whatever you can say to me, you can say to her,” Matt said, hoping to G-d that was true. “Let her go.” Because he really did not know how to get Nat off his wall if she was frozen to it. But Nat took the lead on that – she had wristbands that exploded, freeing her and causing a whole lot of ice to hit his floor.

The woman’s stance loosened, and her arms retracted. “Fine.” She looked at Natasha. “Sorry.”

“Yeah, sure, no problem,” Natasha said gracefully as Matt helped her off the floor. He took the time to focus on the intruder. She was slim but muscled, and an unfamiliar plastic clack-clack took him a minute to figure out – she had prosthetic arms. They were hollowed out and filled with water, which she could retract back into them at will. Natasha was probably staring. “You’re Inna’s daughter.”

The woman huffed. “You’re a Black Widow.”

Japanese and Russian. Those were her accents. Together in English they sounded very strange. “Did Stick send you?” Matt asked, even though it was superfluous.

“Stick isn’t running things anymore,” she said, meaning the Chaste.

“All the same.”

“Yes. The boy should go with me.”

Matt shook his head. “I’m not going to let that happen.”

“I’ve heard you were stubborn,” she said. “You really equipped to handle him?”

“He’s inert. And he’s _a kid_ ,” Matt reminded her. “He doesn’t have to grow up to be a killer like the rest of us.”

“You think after what he’s been through, he can be anyone else?”

“He can be whatever he wants to be.”

“And you think you’re going to be the one to determine what happens to him? That that’s best?”

“If there’s anything I’ve learned recently, it’s that everyone has an agenda. If you want to fight me over him? That’s fine. I won’t like it but I’ll do it. But I have the Avengers behind me. And I bet if I ask high enough, I have the White Lotus, too.”

The woman was strange; most of the shifting was the water moving up and down in her plastic arms, and it was hard to read, but it betrayed some of her emotions. At the moment, she was hesitating. “You don’t have the authority to – “

“I stopped Black Sky, I made him the way he is – he’s my responsibility. I’m not passing him off to anyone who asks.”

“You would fight the Chaste over this?”

“I would fight anyone over this,” he said, his voice near a growl. He knew she was backing down. Was it his conviction or her fear? He _had_ killed two members of the Chaste, even if it wasn’t of his own volition. She had waterbending, but he had airbending _and_ backup. “If you try to take him, I’ll follow. I’ll go to the Spirit World if I have to.”

Her watery arms extended again. “So be it.” She swung them forward so they whipped up to his ceiling, where she pulled herself to the stairs leading to roof access. Water was very malleable, particularly to her will, and she was gone before he moved except to put his hand out to stop Nat from trying to follow.

“She’s not coming back,” he said.

“Are you telepathic now too?”

He grimaced. “I’m sorry about that.”

She put her wrist weapons back in their hidden holsters. “Wasn’t your fault. Also, can you teach me how to do that?” She gestured to the ice melting on his floor.

“Ha,” he said. “I wish.”


	22. Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry these last two chapters were delayed. There was a family emergency and I was offline.

He didn’t have to wait long for his answer from Marci. Not that he could afford it – Juan would be released from the hospital in a few more days, maximum, and while they could probably swing Matt sheltering him during the asylum trial, they were in murky territory, legally-speaking. But she was fairly sure she could find a full-time immigration lawyer to take the case – if he paid with real money, she reminded him.

Of course he would. He would go into debt for this.

That brought them to step two. Since Matt wouldn’t leave the hospital, Foggy had to pull aside into a waiting area for parents while Juan was resting. “Okay, so we might have a plan.”

“You found a social worker to take pity on me?”

Foggy was frowning. “No, it’s a little more complicated than that. But – just tell me you’ll hear me out on this.”

Matt didn’t like the sound of it, but he swallowed tension that and said, “Okay.”

“She looked over your application – unofficially. She said you won’t pass. They’re going to want a two-parent household. They can be shitty, overworked parents who already have three foster kids, but there have to be two of them in the home. And she might have a little bit of a point – I know, I know – about the blind thing. You need me to read your mail, Matt. I know you don’t like it, but you have ... limitations.”

Matt’s face hardened. “So. Your plan.”

“Yeah, so, two parents. Who have to be living together. If you get approved for foster care, it’s a pretty straight shot to adoption because they want him out of the system so they don’t have to give you a stipend. Foster care is only meant to be temporary – “

“I know.”

“ – so if I moved in, and we applied for guardianship together, we would have a strong case. I mean, yes, I don’t speak Spanish, but I speak five foreign languages and two of the them are Romance languages. I’ll manage for the first month with Rosetta Stone and Dora the Explorer and then I’ll have it down. You know I can do it.”

He still didn’t know why Foggy had studied Romanian in the first place. “But just because we live in the same apartment doesn’t mean we can share custody – “

“And we get married.” Foggy breathed out. “That’s the other thing. We get married, we apply as a couple. It’s a very strong application. I have tons of family who we can fall back on for support and we’re a little more stable if we combine our finances. The whole adoption process takes maybe a year, so we file the paperwork, make it happen, and then when Juan’s adopted, we have a no-fault divorce and you get full custody.” His heart wasn’t racing, but it was definitely sped-up, and he was sweating. But it didn’t mean he hadn’t thought this through. “What do you think?”

Matt ... had nothing to say. For a full ten seconds, minimum. “Foggy, do you want to marry me?”

“Um, do you hear me getting down on one knee and holding out a pawn shop ring?” But he was at least a little amused by the concept. “No, dude. We didn’t work in school and I don’t think that’s suddenly going to change. Plus I don’t think your priest will be so cool with it anyway.”

“You don’t kno – “

“I’m saying, it doesn’t matter. This is a paper marriage, because we need it to get custody and keep this kid from being shipped back to Mexico because of some shitty, racist politicians with shitty immigration policies to push on their constituents.” He sighed. “I know how much you want to do this. I know you would do anything for this kid. And, well – this is _anything_.”

Matt gaped. He really had no idea how to react. It was like his brain wasn’t firing. “Are you really willing to do this?”

“Matt, buddy, you have talked me into _way_ stupider things than saving the life of an orphaned kid. Things that were not worth my time or energy. This is worth it.”

Foggy wasn’t lying. Matt knew that much. He feel like he didn’t know a whole lot else. He was so full of conviction about Juan but Foggy was the one who was able to see that he carried it out. “I – I don’t know how to thank you.”

“We’ll just stick it on the pile,” Foggy said, holding out his hand for a fist bump. “Friends? We’d better be. Because we’re about to be a lot more than friends.”

Matt pulled him into a hug instead. “So, what’s Marci going to say?”

*******************************

Marci didn’t respond immediately. She sat through Foggy’s long, scattered, frantic explanation as he paced her apartment – their apartment, really – and laid out the whole plan in front of her. It was only a slight scam, after all. If two men could get married, did it really matter if they weren’t having sex? Or committed to each other within the traditional notions of matrimony? He threw out every possible argument, and then waited through a painful silence for a response. “Well?”

Marci got up and picked a box from Amazon out of recycling, then handed it to Foggy. “Here. My wedding present.”

“What’s this for?”

“Um, your stuff? Because it sure as hell isn’t staying here.”

“Marci, don’t be – “

“What? Realistic?” She was utterly without remorse, but she was also very serious. “What did you think, you were just going to sleep on his couch and be there when social services sends someone over to inspect the apartment? It was just going to be for show?”

“ ... We’re not _really_ getting married.”

“But you are _really_ adopting a kid together,” she said. “Which is _really_ serious. It wasn’t just CPS being arbitrarily cold-hearted when they said Matt’s application wasn’t strong enough. Sure, single parents can raise kids, but it’s tough on them and the kids even if they aren’t blind and have significant mobility issues. That’s why the social worker wanted a two-parent household – because she wants _both_ of you there. All that shit you’re putting on your application about how you’re going to be a super dad who’s going to help him pick out his clothes in the morning and do his homework and go to his soccer practice? And how your extended family’s going to help and your parents are eager to be grandparents? This is a human being we’re talking about, and if anything you’ve said about him is true, he is one traumatized little boy who’s going to need all the help and emotional support he can get. So you better not have filled out that application with lies, Foggy-bear. Because if you did, and you’re going to leave him with crazy depressed Matt, then I don’t want to be dating you anyway.” She added, “Booty calls are still acceptable. But I’m not staying exclusive or anything. So don’t expect that.”

“I ... I don’t know what to say.”

“Then I call the crock pot,” she replied. “And don’t just stand there. Don’t you have to go be a responsible husband and parent now?”

“You’re incredible,” he said, not sure whether he loved or hated her for it.

*******************************

Father Lantom was more than willing to come to the hospital. He had clerical rounds there, and he counseled people other than patients. He offered to visit Juan.

Matt shook his head. “He’s had bad experiences with priests. He might need some time to get over it.”

Of course, Lantom understood. He was patient through Matt’s entire explanation of the situation, including the bit about Black Sky, and what Matt had done to Juan. This wasn’t Matt’s official Confession – he was all business – and Lantom didn’t judge. He barely said anything until Matt posed the marriage plan to him in a more questioning way.

“And?”

“Marriage is a sacrament.”

“I’m aware of that, Matthew.” Lantom didn’t even sigh. This was hardly the strangest proposal Matt had ever made to him. “Are you actually intending to be married to this man beyond what’s on paper? Will you consider yourself married, the same way you would if you committed yourself to someone you loved and wanted to spend the rest of your life with in holy matrimony?”

“No. Of course not,” Matt said. “And we would need to divorce.” It came out like it was a dirty word.

Lantom threw up his hands. “Technically speaking, you won’t be married in the eyes of the church. There are churches here in the city that would marry you, if that was what you wanted, but you know what I mean.”

“I know.”

“So. There is no marriage. There is no divorce. There is no sin of divorce.” He shrugged. “I’m not going to officially endorse this but I also don’t think you want me to. But in terms of what you need to do for this child, if you’re ready for that responsibility, you should use every legal option available to you.” He asked, because it was probably his job, “Are you ready for that responsibility?”

Matt wasn’t sure if he was, but he knew there wasn’t another option.

*******************************

“You talked to your priest?” Foggy asked. “What am I saying? Of course you did.”

“He wasn’t against it.”

“But it wasn’t going to be a church wedding.”

“We’re not _really_ getting married,” Matt pointed out, awkwardly. Everything felt awkward about it, even that he was in his good suit – because it felt weird to not be – as they approached the steps of City Hall. It didn’t open for twenty minutes, but it was a Friday and there was already a line.

He’d been to City Hall before, to report to and be dismissed from jury duty, and for work, but not to get fake married to his law partner so they could adopt an illegal immigrant – who was getting out of the hospital _tomorrow_ , which gave them very little time to hesitate about this arrangement. Foggy’s parents were coming by in the afternoon to turn over the apartment with supplies left over from raising five children, though Foggy had not invited them to the ceremony and Matt hadn’t suggested it. Claire was their legal witness. She arrived dressed in scrubs for work and with no doubt with a bemused look on her face. “Do I at least get cake out of this?”

“I’ll bring you a fancy cupcake later,” Matt said. “Thanks for doing this. And please don’t tell, um, anyone.”

“The marriage part or the scam part?”

“It’s not technically a scam,” Foggy said. “We are getting married. It’s not the government’s business as to _why_ we’re getting married. But I’m starting to think Matt’s a little embarrassed.”

“Juan’s been through enough,” Matt said pointedly. “I don’t want to also put him through a divorce.”

“Oh.” Foggy sounded a little disappointed at Matt’s logic. “That makes sense. Plus, you know, not-gay gay dads. Is this legal in Mexico?”

“Stop looking at me,” Claire said. “My family’s Puerto Rican.”

They didn’t have to put on the pretense of being an eager, happy couple for long. The ceremony itself was straightforward and short and perhaps it helped that they were both blushing and nervous, and Foggy stammered out some awkward lines about rings being stuck in the shop (like wedding rings were cars or something) and Matt kept his mouth shut and signed the document he couldn’t read legally binding himself to Foggy as his husband, ‘til death (or divorce) do they part. They did hug, and that was real, and Matt was very glad that his glasses were hiding his eyes and he didn’t have to wipe them. “Thank you. For this. For everything.”

“Can’t imagine a better guy to get fake married to,” Foggy said. His heart was beating fast but it wasn’t because he was lying.

*******************************

Edward and Anna Nelson were a little confused when they showed up at the apartment, despite Foggy’s explanation, and needed some reassuring from Matt.

“It’s very noble, what you’re doing for Juan,” Mrs. Nelson said. “And it wouldn’t be a big deal if you said you and Foggy were – “

“We’re not _together_.” He did not discuss law school with them. That was none of their business. “And please don’t tell him we’re married. This is going to be confusing enough for him.” Culture shock was really the least of it. He didn’t go into that, either. He trusted that whatever Foggy told them would be sufficient. He needed their help, and over the course of the afternoon and evening, Matt realized how woefully unprepared he had been to house a child. They brought a temporary cot (Foggy’s bed had to be professionally moved, until then he was on the couch) that was child-sized, along with a trunk of old toys that were careful disinfected. They had posters, old clothing, lamps, silverware and dishes, placements, child shampoo, area rugs, age-appropriate books, and locks for the cabinets with the cleaning supplies. They stocked the fridge with sugary cereal and juice and the freezer with pre-made meals of food Foggy liked, and they generally decorated the place in what they informed Matt were various bright _colors_ , which was not generally a thing he gave much thought to. By nightfall, Matt was using his own cane in the apartment to find his way around without stubbing his toes. Only his bedroom was left mostly untouched. They went out for dinner on the Nelsons, who were excited to meet their quasi-grandkid, and then Matt returned home to unfamiliar smells in a cramped, messy apartment.

“This is okay, right?” Foggy must have sensed his hesitation. How did he do that? He wasn’t the one with heightened senses. “We haven’t lived together in years and ... it’s a lot.”

“Yeah, I know.” He was too tired to say otherwise. “But it’s – it’s good. It’s going to be good.” He wasn’t the only one who needed a pep talk. “I want to do this, Foggy. I would have said something if I didn’t. I just – I can’t leave him. Not when he needs someone.”

“You’re not Stick,” Foggy said because he knew Matt just that well, which was scary when he thought about it. “You’re never going to be Stick. You couldn’t be him if you tried. You’re going to be a great dad.”

“And you’re going to be a great ... uncle. Dad. Thing.”

“Yeah, I’m going to be a great ‘thing.’ Thanks, Matt.”

“You know what I meant.”

“I always know what you mean, buddy. You’re lucky to have me.”

“Yeah.” Matt certainly couldn’t contradict that. “I am.”

*******************************

The next day was a whirlwind of paperwork, legal discussions, and lectures from the hospital staff, but by the end of it they managed to get Juan Diaz discharged into their temporary custody. His asylum case was just beginning and the ink wasn’t dry on their foster care application, but someone had to take this undocumented, highly traumatized immigrant, and the state wasn’t rushing in to do the job, so the hospital signed off on it, and left them with instructions of when Juan had to return to have his stitches pulled and a pile of documents for how to apply for therapy, social services available to trafficking victims and refugees, and a prosthetic arm. Foggy figured he could wrestle one out of Tony, but Matt pointed out that it would undoubtedly make things explode, intentionally or unintentionally, and Juan was too young to be a cyborg.

As for Juan, very little was explained to him except by the hospital translator and Matt, but as long as he was holding Matt’s arm, he seemed okay. Scared, but okay. In comparison to how he entered the hospital, he was fantastic. Matt didn’t leave his side, and he didn’t leave Matt’s. Foggy tried to explain that Juan would have to learn to guide Matt, but his Spanish was still too broken and wandered into Italian, so he wisely gave up. He did have fun pushing Juan out in the wheelchair faster than the hospital was interested in having happen, but it got Juan to laugh and stop being scared and confused, so Matt was happy.

Juan didn’t totally understand what was going on, or the legal ramifications of it, but he knew he could stay with Matt, and he was fine with that.

“Aquí es _,” (This is us_ ) Matt explained as they entered the apartment. He had even less of an idea of what it looked like than usual. The extra spaces were littered with Foggy’s hastily-moved things, most of them still smelling of Marci’s apartment or storage.

“¿Vives aquí con el señor Foggy?” ( _You live here with Señor Foggy_?”

“Hey, I know that was me!”

“Si, ambos vivimos aquí porque los dos nos vamos a encargar de cuidarte _,_ ” ( _Yes, we both live here because we’re both going to take care of you)_ he said. “Puedes confiar en él. Es un buen hombre.” ( _You can trust him. He’s a good man)_

“I’ll figure out your crazy Spanish talk!” Foggy shook his finger at them. “Está bien, ¿quién quiere pizza? Juan, ¿pizza?” ( _Okay, who wants pizza? Juan, pizza_?)

“En realidad no es estúpido,” Matt told Juan. ( _He’s actually not an idiot_ )

Dinner started out with some stilted conversation with Foggy’s broken Spanish and one overwhelmed kid, but the universal language of food and fizzy soda smoothed things over until it was time for Juan’s evening dose of antibiotics and pain medication. Foggy helped him shower for the first time outside of the hospital, keeping his arm dry and avoiding the stitches in his side. Matt could sense each time Juan flinched, but Foggy had some experience bathing children with cuts and bruises and he could be sensitive in any language, and wash hair with the no-tears shampoo and get him clean with minimal fuss and ready for bed in newly-purchased Spongebob pajamas, like Juan was a regular kid and this was a regular night with his two dads. Everything else could wait for tomorrow.

Matt waited for Juan’s breathing to slow down to indicate he was safely asleep before leaving his side and sharing a beer with Foggy – the last of their liquor, as child serves was coming by in the morning and they wanted to make the best possible impression.

“We’re gonna blow ‘em away,” Foggy said as they clinked their bottles together. “Upwardly mobile, overeducated, cosmopolitan gay guys looking to adopt? We should be on their promotional material.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“It can be.” Foggy was optimistic as usual. “Just remember to wear your non-reflective glasses to the photoshoot.”

Buoyed by Foggy’s optimism, Matt retreated to his bedroom. It was hard to fall asleep. He was nervous and not used to so many people in what had previously been his personal living space. Foggy’s heartbeat was familiar and he still snored, but he was at least willing to wear one of those breath strips to keep it to a minimum. They would have to put up walls like other New Yorkers who were apartment-sharing to keep bills down so the space could be livable without them killing each other. He wasn’t sure where that would leave Juan.

He’d barely gotten to sleep when he was startled by movement. Juan was standing by his bed. “What?” It took him a second to switch into Spanish. “¿Qué pasa?” ( _What is it?_ )

Juan was shivering. Matt instinctively pulled him into a hug. “Oye, está bien.” ( _Hey. It’s okay_ )He tried to feel his face, but Juan buried his face in Matt’s elbow and hid from his fingers. “¿Qué pasa?” ( _What is it?_ )

“Quiero ir a casa,” ( _I want to go home_ ) Juan said. His voice was high. He was trying very hard not to cry. “Extraño a mamá y a papá, y a mi hermano y hermanas, y a mi perro y...” ( _I miss my Mama and Papa and my brother and sisters and my dog and_ –)

“Lo sé, lo sé _.” (I know, I know)_ He didn’t want to say the obvious. He knew it, Juan knew it, Natasha’s research had confirmed it. The only family he had to go home to was an uncle in Mexico City who he’d never met before. “Esto va a ser difícil. Mi papá también murió cuando era un niño. Él era la única familia que tenía. Estaba solo. Asustado. Pensaba que nunca sería major.” ( _I know this is hard. My dad died when I was a kid, too. He was the only family I had. I was alone. I was scared. I thought it would never get better_ ) He finally managed to find Juan’s face and wiped away his tears. “Pero será mejor, ¿está bien? Te lo prometo. Toma timepo, pero sucede.” ( _But it does, okay? I promise you_. _It takes time, but it happens_ ) He wiped his hand on his sleeve. “Cuando seas mayor, vamos a ir a México, y los vamos a visitar. Vamos a honrar sus memorias. Tienes que quedarte aquí y sanar.” ( _When you’re older, we’ll go to Mexico, and we’ll visit them. We’ll honor their memories. But right now, it wouldn’t be good for you. You have to stay here and heal_ )He knew without touching it directly that Juan’s stitches itched, and that his right arm was still burned and sensitive. He also knew he was trying not to show it. “Eres muy valiente. Creo que eres el niño más valiente que he conocido. Puedes superar esto. Vas a hacer que tu familia se sienta orgullosa.” ( _You’ve very brave. I think you’re the bravest kid I’ve ever met_. _You can get through this. You’ll make your family proud_ )

Juan hesitated, his fingers lightly plying at Matt’s shirt. “¿Puedo...?” ( _Can I ...?_ ”)

Matt smiled. “Solo esta vez, ¿está bien?” ( _Just this once, okay?_ ) He pushed Juan’s tiny hand against his chest and took a deep breath. Black Sky sprung to the surface, willing and eager, like it was trying to meet Juan’s palm with its own through a barrier of skin, only it didn’t have hands because it wasn’t a person. It felt ... confusing to Matt, like the own edges of his person were being mixed up in something else, but he could handle it because it made his Black Sky feel better, and that made Juan feel better, and that was his world now, and he was more than okay with that.

Even Juan knew not to hold the connection too long. He needed to back off a step, to reestablish himself as a separate entity, even if those were words he wouldn’t be able to understand, as Matt could barely understand them himself. But he wasn’t shivering and he wasn’t scared. “Me voy a quedar contigo, ¿verdad? ¿No vas a dejar que me manden a otro lugar?” ( _I’m going to stay with you, right? You’re not going to let them send me somewhere else?_ )

“ _No._ ” He took his hand and squeezed it. “Ahora esta es tu casa. ¿Está bien?” ( _This is home now. Okay?_ )

Juan was smiling. “Está bien.” ( _Okay_ )

And it was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ha! I bet you didn't think I was filling a fake marriage prompt this whole time, did you? Huh? DID YOU?


	23. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it! I'd like to thank Zelofheda and Nahirr for editing work on this very long story. It's been quite a ride.
> 
> I'm working on some assorted follow-up pieces covering events that happen after this story, so if you're interested in seeing more of a character or plotline, please let me know in comments here or on my tumblr, and I will give it my best.
> 
> Otherwise, if you enjoyed reading, please leave a comment! I appreciate every word.
> 
> Enjoy!

6 Months Later

“C’mon, c’mon, vamanos, kid!” Foggy was frantically searching for Juan’s backpack, which always ended up in the weirdest of places. Matt was told it was Spider-man-themed, and he tried not to act offended. “What are you wearing? ¿Qué es eso?” ( _What’s that?_ )

“My clothes,” Juan said in halting, highly-accented English that was coming along right behind Foggy’s Spanish. “Dijiste que no íbamos a la iglesa hoy.” ( _You said no church today_ )

“You still have to be dressed,” Foggy said. “Trata de lucir bien para Claire. Vuelve a intentarlo. ¡Ve!” ( _You have to look good for Claire. Try again_. _Go!_ )

Juan spun around as Matt emerged from his room, still buttoning his dress shirt. “Do I look okay?”

“Buen intento.,” ( _Nice try_ ) Matt said. He knew Juan was still in his pajamas. “Apúrate. Foggy no tendría que tener que vestirnos a ambos.” ( _Hurry up. Foggy shouldn’t have to dress us both_ )

“If you kept your ties straight I wouldn’t need to,” Foggy said. He was a little nervous – they both were – about leaving Juan with someone else for such a long period of time, even if it was just an especially long day trip, possibly an overnight. Details of the event were sketchy. But Juan liked Claire, who didn’t try to make him speak English, or do his school work, and was a good cook. By the time she arrived, Juan was dressed in his play clothes and wearing his backpack and Foggy had prepared a grocery bag full of juice packs and the healthy organic snack bars Matt thought Juan _should_ eat and the candy they agreed was okay for weekends. This wasn’t Claire’s first time babysitting for them, it just the longest stretch, and their first trip out of town.

“Thanks for this,” Matt said, fingering his cane after she recovered from her enthusiastic greeting from Juan.

“Just don’t blow up DC, okay?” she said. “Or whatever it is you guys are doing down there.”

“I don’t think it’s going to be that exciting.”

“It better be _something_ ,” Foggy said. “I’m not spending four hours on a train with you if there isn’t some kind of magic weirdness at the end of it.”

“He’s kidding,” Matt assured Claire. “Or he’d better be.”

They didn’t have a real answer for her. All they had were separate invitations which arrived two weeks before, cordially inviting them to an initiation ceremony for the Order of the White Lotus. Discretion was required and formal attire was recommended. The location was a senior home just outside the border of Washington, and aside from the tickets they _of course_ weren’t provided with any more information.

Matt picked Juan up and held him at eye level. It was getting harder to do. Juan’s prosthetic didn’t weigh a lot – it was plastic, and he was wearing the one with a hook at the end because it was the easiest to maneuver – but his body was shooting up at an alarming rate. “Tu papá tiene que ir a hablar con gente vieja en Washinton.” ( _Your dad has to go talk to some old people in Washington_ ) Somehow he had slipped into being ‘your dad’ even though Foggy hadn’t. “Probalemente será muy aburrido.” ( _It’ll probably be pretty boring_ ) Lie. “Así que diviértete con Claire, haz lo que te diga y nos veremos mañana.” ( _So have fun with Claire, and do what she says, and we’ll see you tomorrow_ ) He kissed him on his cheek and set him down.

“Oíste lo que dijo, ,” ( _You heard what he said_ ) Foggy told Juan, patting him on the head. Fortunately they had gotten past the ‘I want to come!’ stage several days before. “Be good. Si te portas mal vas a tener que comer lo que prepare Matt durante una semana.” ( _If you’re bad you have to eat Matt’s cooking for a week_ )

“No!”

“Hey,” Matt said, non-committal. “But yes. So behave!”

Juan made a face. Matt couldn’t quite make it out – he wasn’t great with expressions – but he could at least tell he was doing it, and that was enough.

The trip to DC was uneventful, especially thanks to Matt’s black market Canadian Zofran, which kept the worst of his nausea at bay. That and he now had plane rides to compare it to. It was Amtrak Acela, which was fairly smooth, but had nothing on Japan’s bullet trains. And it was still better than driving.

Natasha drove up to the pick-up line at the train station. Neither of them were surprised. “We have to make a stop. I’m not even a member yet and I’m already shuttling around the others. I don’t think this is a good precedent.”

“It’s better than Matt’s driving,” Foggy said as they got in. Matt didn’t contradict him. He wasn’t drunk enough to tell that story and was grateful when Natasha didn’t ask. “So where’s Captain America?”

“Considering how much information I get my hands on for people, you would think they would tell me more,” she said.

Their stop was the airport, where they retrieved an old man with a white goatee and an ugly sweater vest. “Dr. Pym,” Natasha said, opening the side door for him. “Scott’s not here?”

He rolled his eyes. “Yeah. No. Who knows what he’s up to?” He climbed into the front seat. “So. One ninja and one used car salesman.”

“We’re lawyers, actually,” Matt said, running a hand down his tie.

“Defense attorneys,” Foggy pointed out. “So like a step up from used car salesmen. And Matt’s just blind.”

“I still have yet to meet a blind person who isn’t a ninja,” Dr. Pym said. His first name was Hank. After the whole Ant-Man thing, Matt had googled him. He’d once been a member of SHIELD. That wasn’t a surprise.

“Far be it from me to tell you broaden your social horizon – “

“Eh.” Pym waved. “Look, I left my house. Give me credit for that.”

The meeting was not exactly in a clandestine location, though Matt supposed no one would be looking for a secret society in the cafeteria of an assisted living facility. It smelled exquisitely of aging bodies, the overuse of moisturizing creams and ointments, and occasionally, fouler things. Steve Rogers appeared to shoo away the staff who served the facility’s regular customers.

“Good to see you,” Stick said, somewhat sarcastically. “You smell like less of a mess than you usually are. And animal crackers.”

“I’ve developed a bit of a habit,” Matt said. “Where have you been?”

Stick shrugged. He was nursing at least one injury under his clothing. “Here and there. I didn’t knock the shit out of you too many times for you to remember this Hand asshole, right?” He gestured to Sota.

“Retired, remember?” Sota bowed to Matt and Foggy. “Welcome.” Even though it was clear that he didn’t live here.

The festivities started when Steve Rodgers wheeled in Peggy Carter, Grand Lotus of the Order of the White Lotus, who was wearing a nice jacket over her nightgown and a necklace of wooden beads with one large talisman with the lotus symbol on it. Natasha, who had guessed her identity from the address on her invite, explained on the way over that she might stumble over her words and they were to politely decline to notice it. Her dementia was obviously somewhat advanced. Matt could tell her hands had tremors and though she was introduced, she did not launch into a speech. The other members sat down on each side to form a council around her. “Hank. If you would.”

“Right, right.” Dr. Pym stood on her left side. “Welcome to the Order of the White Lotus. I didn’t do any of the pre-reading, so what are we doing here today?”

“New members,” Stick said.

“Hmm.” Pym looked the three of them over. They were seated on folding chairs opposite the table. “All right. Who’s nominating?”

“I nominated Matt Murdock,” Stick said, “Because he’s a little shit but he deserves it.”

“I second,” Sotah said. “Because – “

“I don’t really care,” Pym said. “Right, he’s committed to the path of truth and peace and all that bullshit. I can’t stand here all day. It’s gonna kill my back. Who’s next?”

“Natasha Romanov,” Steve said. “I nominate.”

“Inna’s seconding,” Stick said. “She can’t be here. She’s doing it from the Spirit World.”

“Fine.” It was hard to get Pym worked up about anything. He pointed to Foggy. “You. Guy in green.”

“That’s Franklin Nelson,” Sota said, “and I nominated him and invited him to the Spirit World.”

“And I second,” Steve Rogers said.

Foggy’s heart sped up as he whispered to himself, “ _Awesome_.”

“Right. So – oh, wait.” Pym cough. “So, just before we do this, are any of you now, or have you ever been a member of Hydra?”

“No,” they said, and Stick affirmed that they were telling the truth.

“Are any of you members of any kind of Nazi death cult or Nazi-death-cult-like group that isn’t called Hydra, but is a lot like Hydra? We just need to cover our bases here.”

“No,” they repeated.

“Good,” he said. “Just so you know, if you are, and we find out about it, you will be spending your afterlife in the Fog of Lost Souls.”

“Yeah, with Alex Pierce,” Stick said with a mean chuckle.

“One guy! We let one guy in and we’ll never hear the end of it,” Pym said.

“No you won’t,” Steve said. “Is there anything else we say at these things?”

“It is a little more formal when Izo is here,” Peggy admitted. “Where is he?”

“Prison,” Pym said. “So – that’s it. You’re all members of the Order of the White Lotus. Come take your tiles.” He pulled out a little Ziploc bag and dumped them on the table. “And keep the order secret or we’ll do the fog thing. Also hurry it up. I’ve never been sober at a meeting for this long.”

*******************************

“ – so he crashed headfirst into Izo’s koi pond,” Pym said. “Nearly broke his head open. His cologne killed the fish. And they were like, the tenth generation of goldfish Izo had been caring for.” He took another swig of whiskey. “And that’s why Howard Stark never became a Grand Lotus.”

They were at the nearby bar. After shaking Peggy Carter’s hand, they were excused and she was sent back to her room, and the rest of them retreated to where alcohol was more readily available. Steve sat there politely with a beer, amused, as the other members got sloppy. “How come you never became a Grand Lotus?”

“Institutional speciesism against ants.”

“He punched a Grand Lotus in the face,” Stick explained. “I think that was my initiation.”

“No, it was in ‘Frisco,” Pym corrected him. “Right after the whole portal thing. It was me, you, Carter, Stark, and T’Chaka. Stark was whining about how he had a kid at home and he didn’t have any sleep and that’s why his power helmet got all turned around and he ran into a wall of the compound.”

“Ha! I think I also set him on fire.” Stick added, “Accidentally. I had firebending for maybe a week up to this I was so excited. I was a stupid kid.” He emptied another shot glass. “Not for setting anyone on fire, though. For other things.”

“I don’t know where Izo finds you guys,” Pym said, gesturing in the general direction of Stick and Matt. “But when I had to put in all of those ramps and handicapped spaces I said, ‘No, those fuckers are dangerous.’ And then Cross overrules me, which was probably for the best.”

“Yeah,” Foggy said. “Don’t want people suing you for not being ADA-compliant.”

“Whatever happened to him? Weren’t you going to make him Ant-Man?”

“He wanted to be. Made his own suit, blah blah blah, Hydra, blah blah blah, I think he got run over by a toy train. Or something.”

“This was when you broke the Avenger machinery, right?” Steve asked.

“Shrunk it. It _imploded_ ,” Pym explained. “It’s very hard to do. You should be impressed.”

“Yeah we’re all very impressed,” Natasha said. “Not that there isn’t anyone who doesn’t love breaking Stark’s stuff.” She rolled her eyes at Stick. “I’m glaring at you.”

“I can tell.”

“You owe me a trip to the Spirit World.”

“I owe you shit,” he said. “But if you want to see Inna, I’ll tell you where to find her. Sure as hell not going there myself.”

“No secrets between members?” Foggy asked.

“Too late to start that policy now,” Pym said.

Steve Rodgers couldn’t get drunk, but he didn’t need alcohol to break Foggy’s hamburger-eating record, which wasn’t technically fair, Foggy pointed out after almost throwing up in the alley near the train station. As this was the way White Lotus meetings general ended (Sota explained), no one was particularly surprised, and Matt and Foggy had a long way back to New York if they wanted to be there to pick up Juan before Claire needed to get to work.

“Having a kid,” Matt slurred. “Responsibilities. For at least the next ... ten years?”

“Trust me, you got your hands full for the rest of your fuckin’ life,” Stick said. “I haven’t gotten rid of you, have I?”

Matt held out his arms. “Gimme a hug.”

“We should make holding your liquor a requirement for new members.”

“You didn’t say n – Ow! Ow!” Matt yelped when Stick hit him in the shin with his cane, hard. “I deserved that.”

“Yeah you did.” Stick put a slightly-unsteady hand on his shoulder. “Take care of that kid. Don’t let him turn out like us.”

“Yeah,” Matt said. “That’s fair.”

“Matt, we have to make our train!” Foggy shouted. “If I stay here any longer I’m gonna vomit on an Avenger and I don’t know how many times I can do that before they get mad at me!” He let Natasha release him from her steadying grip. “How are you so sober?”

“I grew up in Russia. Vodka is cleaner than the water,” she said. “Are you going to make it home safe on the train?”

“Trainsick Matt is better than carsick Matt,” he assured her. “You didn’t bring a jet, did you?”

“It would have been conspicuous.”

“Have fun in, um, somewhere where it’s very cold,” Matt told her, trying to compose himself before they reached the tracks. The night air was helping. “Visit us when you get back? And I’m not just saying that because we need a second-string babysitter.”

“That’s most of the reason,” Foggy admitted.

Natasha straightened out Matt’s tie, which had come very loose. “Take care of yourself.”

“It’s hard to be too focused on myself,” Matt admitted, and grabbed Foggy before he almost tripped again. “Maybe that’s good.”

“All the same.” She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek, and he grinned. He could guess Foggy’s expression.

He would pay for it on the train home, but it would be worth it. Most things in his life were.

 

The End


End file.
